UPPLYSNING
I AVSIKT ATT SKAPA
EN NY VÄRLD
PRELIMINÄR PRESENTATION AV DEN FULLÄNDADE IDEOLOGIEN.1
UPPROP TILL STÖD FÖR DEN SANNA RÄTTVISAN.2
INLEDNING TILL ALL VIDSKEPELSES FÖRINTELSE.3
OM VÄGEN TILL KOMMUNISM VIA KAPITALISM.4
DEKLARATION ANGÅENDE DET NUVARANDE POLITISKA SAMHÄLLSSKICKETS TYRANNI.5
PRESENTATION AV FRAMTIDENS SAMHÄLLSSKICK.6
ANGIVANDE AV MÅL OCH MEDEL FÖR REGIMBYTET.7
OM BEHOVET AV ”FASCISTISK ESTETIK”8
OM BIOLOGISK RÄTTVISA9
OM FRAMTIDENS FAROR OCH HUR DE AVVÄRJS10
SAMHÄLLSPROBLEMET KÖNSDISKREPANS I SEXUALITET11
FEMINISM FRÅN ORD TILL HANDLING12
VARNING!
De åsikter och påståenden som i citat presenteras sida vid sida på följande ark betyder alls icke
att dessa citerade författare på något vis som helst står bakom, anstiftat eller ens känner till det möte som denna affischering utlyser.
att citatens författare är eniga eller oeniga i mer än vad som framgår av citaten.
att de är citerade på någon förfrågan från detta dokuments upphovsmän.
att de har något som helst samröre med detta dokuments upphovsmän eller kontakt med eller kännedom om dessa.
- att de säger sig dela den ideologi som deras verk anförs som stöd för.
att de röner någon inkomst från detta dokuments citation mer än vad tillkommer från ev. positiv uppsattning hos läsare.
att de vid publikationens tidpunkt åtminstone har något som helst ansvar för detta dokuments förfärdigande och spridande.
att de är en del av någon organisation som ligger bakom denna publikation.
att de rimligen kan klandras på något som helst relevant, förståeligt eller annorledes väsentligt sätt för att denna publikation skett.
att Demokrates inte menar blodigt allvar med denna stridsskrift.
Dessa noter nedan är avsedda inte som en vetenskapligt formellt giltig referensapparat, eller tillräcklig hänvisning till vetenskapligt korpus vars helhet ger den diskussion och de slutsatser jag presenterar slutgilitig och uttömmande förklaring, bevisföring och korroboration. Demokrates kommer dock i den snara framtiden att förfärdiga det verk som skall vara av nödig art och storlek för sådan gärning. Tydligt och tillfredställande skall vara att det förbinder och överbryggar de mål rubrikerna ovan har satt, och denna nedanstående litteratur, samt all annan väsentlig och nödig vetenskap.
Under tiden detta verk är ofärdigt får jag emellertid själv fungera som den i tveksamheter argumentativa förbindelsen mellan vetenskapen och de politiska imperativen. Jag uppmanar också till läsning av citerad litteratur, liksom de här olika verkens forskningsläges andra framstående alster. Detta eftersom dessa denna referensapparats så att säga ”allierade” skrifter, i sin samlade helhet, med nödvändighet kommer leda läsaren, såvitt hon eller han har minne och förstånd, förkunskap och sunt moraliskt sinne därtill, till de imperativ jag ovan angivit, m.m.. Jag kommer i den snara framtiden att så ofta som möjligt hålla möten där min förmedlande roll kan komma till hjälp. Men jag hoppas att sympatier ska väckas, som kan ta denna börda och dela den med mig, liksom anta ansvaret för de andra uppgifter som då vår vetenskapligt politiska mission gör nödvändiga.
1 Helheten av följande punkter, då dessa uttolkats enligt utilitarismen och den logiska positivismens regler. Den logiska positivismen leder i bevis genom a priori självklara logiska samband; den hävdar den fenomenologiska världens atomistiska struktur. Sambandet mellan en definition uttryckt i direkta namn på ostentivt utskilda empiriska atomer är det förhållande som råder när det som definitionen definierar är, finns, existerar, på så vis att det satisfierar definitionen, för att uttrycka det lite övertydligt. Säger man att en sak finns så finns den om det finns något som är sådant som det man påstått finnas om något finns som är så som ens beskrivning, - i termer så beskrivet, att de samtliga är reducerbara till direkta namn på empiriska atomer - av det aktuellla föremålet för påståendet. Om man uttrycker en sats är den inte ett meningsfullt påstående om något om inte varje term på saker i yttervärlden är reducerbar till sina empiriskt atomära konstituenter. Övriga tillåtna termer måste vara direkta namn på atomära logiska och/eller analytiska sanningar, eller reducerbara till sådana.
2 Som Jeremy Bentham uttryckte den: “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it." – Kap. 1., § 1, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1780/1789.; En annan diskussion och ett försvar av utilitarismen av modernare snitt erbjuder den nutide filosofen David Pearce: “[Bertrand] Russell once observed that "Ethical metaphysics is fundamentally an attempt, however disguised, to give legislative force to our own wishes." Perhaps he is right. Mixing up prediction and prescription is usually a recipe for confusion. Attempts to ground the post-Darwinian project - or any other moral enterprise - in something more exalted than the pleasure-pain principle may simply be spinning a fantasy world of self-deception. Perhaps talk of the moral goodness of eradicating suffering - or any other kind of moral discourse - is merely idle opinion: just a lot of high-falutin noise amid the digital babel of cyberspace.
The traditional-minded scientific rationalist, for one, will surely be unmoved. It will be claimed that the world's [allegedly inherently] valuable and valueless experiences as touted in this chapter are "really" "just" something else: patterns of neuronal firings, the differential modes of vibration of superstrings (or whatever) with which they are posited to be physically identical. Yet this is sophistry. The reductionist argument can be turned on its head. Presumably certain modes of vibration of superstrings etc are "really" "just" valuable experiences. This isn't very illuminating. Whether, why, how, and with what significance, different values of what-it's-like-ness should be mapped on to, or read off, the different numerical values of solutions to the equations of physics are deeper questions altogether, and not ones that can be explored here. They may all just be glorified tickles; or they may not: we simply don't know.
Instead, this section may be concluded with a quick restatement of the plot so far. The biological program holds out the promise that, within a few millennia at most, states of conscious mind everywhere will be by their very nature more enjoyable than anyone alive today can imagine. Our hereditary neurological pleasure-deficit stops us getting a grip on what biotechnology can genetically engineer. In (at the very least) an empirical sense, implementing the post-Darwinian program can fill the world with valuable experiences. They will be enjoyed by human, non-human and post-human beings. Post-Darwinian modes of experience are likely to be of a diversity, profundity and liquid intensity that goes beyond anything accessible to the impoverished hunter-gatherer-evolved imagination. All the moral ills identified by contemporary secular value-systems can be rooted out for ever. Suffering will one day become physically impossible. This all sounds rather bombastic; but the strategy is biologically feasible as a species-project should we choose to pursue it.
Whether maximising the valued in the world amounts, in practice and/or theory, to maximising the intrinsically valuable in the world is another, and harder, question. There is, I have argued, at least a prima facie case that it does. We may one day live in a Universe whose equations describe something which is intrinsically valuable by its very nature.”, §2.20, “Good Vibrations: The Value Of String”, The Hedonistic Imperative, http://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/hedon2.htm (2008/01/22), 1995, “Last updated (Reply to Objection 32) in July 2005”; Återigen tillbaka till 1800-talet, känner Demokrates sig hedrad att för i syfte att stilla allt tvivel, få tillfälle att delge er John Stuart Mill’s lika förlöjligade som obestridliga bevisföring av utilitarismen – John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, 1871 :
“Chapter 4. Of what Sort of Proof the Principle of Utility is Susceptible
It has already been remarked, that questions of ultimate ends do not admit of proof, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. To be incapable of proof by reasoning is common to all first principles; to the first premises of our knowledge, as well as to those of our conduct. But the former, being matters of fact, may be the subject of a direct appeal to the faculties which judge of fact — namely, our senses, and our internal consciousness. Can an appeal be made to the same faculties on questions of practical ends? Or by what other faculty is cognisance taken of them?
Questions about ends are, in other words, questions what things are desirable. The utilitarian doctrine is, that happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being only desirable as means to that end. What ought to be required of this doctrine — what conditions is it requisite that the doctrine should fulfil — to make good its claim to be believed?
The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it: and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it. If the end which the utilitarian doctrine proposes to itself were not, in theory and in practice, acknowledged to be an end, nothing could ever convince any person that it was so. No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good: that each person’s happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons. Happiness has made out its title as one of the ends of conduct, and consequently one of the criteria of morality.
But it has not, by this alone, proved itself to be the sole criterion. To do that, it would seem, by the same rule, necessary to show, not only that people desire happiness, but that they never desire anything else. Now it is palpable that they do desire things which, in common language, are decidedly distinguished from happiness. They desire, for example, virtue, and the absence of vice, no less really than pleasure and the absence of pain. The desire of virtue is not as universal, but it is as authentic a fact, as the desire of happiness. And hence the opponents of the utilitarian standard deem that they have a right to infer that there are other ends of human action besides happiness, and that happiness is not the standard of approbation and disapprobation
But does the utilitarian doctrine deny that people desire virtue, or maintain that virtue is not a thing to be desired? The very reverse. It maintains not only that virtue is to be desired, but that it is to be desired disinterestedly, for itself. Whatever may be the opinion of utilitarian moralists as to the original conditions by which virtue is made virtue; however they may believe (as they do) that actions and dispositions are only virtuous because they promote another end than virtue; yet this being granted, and it having been decided, from considerations of this description, what is virtuous, they not only place virtue at the very head of the things which are good as means to the ultimate end, but they also recognise as a psychological fact the possibility of its being, to the individual, a good in itself, without looking to any end beyond it; and hold, that the mind is not in a right state, not in a state conformable to Utility, not in the state most conducive to the general happiness, unless it does love virtue in this manner — as a thing desirable in itself, even although, in the individual instance, it should not produce those other desirable consequences which it tends to produce, and on account of which it is held to be virtue. This opinion is not, in the smallest degree, a departure from the Happiness principle. The ingredients of happiness are very various, and each of them is desirable in itself, and not merely when considered as swelling an aggregate. The principle of utility does not mean that any given pleasure, as music, for instance, or any given exemption from pain, as for example health, is to be looked upon as means to a collective something termed happiness, and to be desired on that account. They are desired and desirable in and for themselves; besides being means, they are a part of the end. Virtue, according to the utilitarian doctrine, is not naturally and originally part of the end, but it is capable of becoming so; and in those who love it disinterestedly it has become so, and is desired and cherished, not as a means to happiness, but as a part of their happiness.
To illustrate this farther, we may remember that virtue is not the only thing, originally a means, and which if it were not a means to anything else, would be and remain indifferent, but which by association with what it is a means to, comes to be desired for itself, and that too with the utmost intensity. What, for example, shall we say of the love of money? There is nothing originally more desirable about money than about any heap of glittering pebbles. Its worth is solely that of the things which it will buy; the desires for other things than itself, which it is a means of gratifying. Yet the love of money is not only one of the strongest moving forces of human life, but money is, in many cases, desired in and for itself; the desire to possess it is often stronger than the desire to use it, and goes on increasing when all the desires which point to ends beyond it, to be compassed by it, are falling off. It may, then, be said truly, that money is desired not for the sake of an end, but as part of the end. From being a means to happiness, it has come to be itself a principal ingredient of the individual’s conception of happiness. The same may be said of the majority of the great objects of human life — power, for example, or fame; except that to each of these there is a certain amount of immediate pleasure annexed, which has at least the semblance of being naturally inherent in them; a thing which cannot be said of money. Still, however, the strongest natural attraction, both of power and of fame, is the immense aid they give to the attainment of our other wishes; and it is the strong association thus generated between them and all our objects of desire, which gives to the direct desire of them the intensity it often assumes, so as in some characters to surpass in strength all other desires. In these cases the means have become a part of the end, and a more important part of it than any of the things which they are means to. What was once desired as an instrument for the attainment of happiness, has come to be desired for its own sake. In being desired for its own sake it is, however, desired as part of happiness. The person is made, or thinks he would be made, happy by its mere possession; and is made unhappy by failure to obtain it. The desire of it is not a different thing from the desire of happiness, any more than the love of music, or the desire of health. They are included in happiness. They are some of the elements of which the desire of happiness is made up. Happiness is not an abstract idea, but a concrete whole; and these are some of its parts. And the utilitarian standard sanctions and approves their being so. Life would be a poor thing, very ill provided with sources of happiness, if there were not this provision of nature, by which things originally indifferent, but conducive to, or otherwise associated with, the satisfaction of our primitive desires, become in themselves sources of pleasure more valuable than the primitive pleasures, both in permanency, in the space of human existence that they are capable of covering, and even in intensity.
Virtue, according to the utilitarian conception, is a good of this description. There was no original desire of it, or motive to it, save its conduciveness to pleasure, and especially to protection from pain. But through the association thus formed, it may be felt a good in itself, and desired as such with as great intensity as any other good; and with this difference between it and the love of money, of power, or of fame, that all of these may, and often do, render the individual noxious to the other members of the society to which he belongs, whereas there is nothing which makes him so much a blessing to them as the cultivation of the disinterested love of virtue. And consequently, the utilitarian standard, while it tolerates and approves those other acquired desires, up to the point beyond which they would be more injurious to the general happiness than promotive of it, enjoins and requires the cultivation of the love of virtue up to the greatest strength possible, as being above all things important to the general happiness.
It results from the preceding considerations, that there is in reality nothing desired except happiness. Whatever is desired otherwise than as a means to some end beyond itself, and ultimately to happiness, is desired as itself a part of happiness, and is not desired for itself until it has become so. Those who desire virtue for its own sake, desire it either because the consciousness of it is a pleasure, or because the consciousness of being without it is a pain, or for both reasons united; as in truth the pleasure and pain seldom exist separately, but almost always together, the same person feeling pleasure in the degree of virtue attained, and pain in not having attained more. If one of these gave him no pleasure, and the other no pain, he would not love or desire virtue, or would desire it only for the other benefits which it might produce to himself or to persons whom he cared for.
We have now, then, an answer to the question, of what sort of proof the principle of utility is susceptible. If the opinion which I have now stated is psychologically true — if human nature is so constituted as to desire nothing which is not either a part of happiness or a means of happiness, we can have no other proof, and we require no other, that these are the only things desirable. If so, happiness is the sole end of human action, and the promotion of it the test by which to judge of all human conduct; from whence it necessarily follows that it must be the criterion of morality, since a part is included in the whole.
And now to decide whether this is really so; whether mankind do desire nothing for itself but that which is a pleasure to them, or of which the absence is a pain; we have evidently arrived at a question of fact and experience, dependent, like all similar questions, upon evidence. It can only be determined by practised self-consciousness and self-observation, assisted by observation of others. I believe that these sources of evidence, impartially consulted, will declare that desiring a thing and finding it pleasant, aversion to it and thinking of it as painful, are phenomena entirely inseparable, or rather two parts of the same phenomenon; in strictness of language, two different modes of naming the same psychological fact: that to think of an object as desirable (unless for the sake of its consequences), and to think of it as pleasant, are one and the same thing; and that to desire anything, except in proportion as the idea of it is pleasant, is a physical and metaphysical impossibility.
So obvious does this appear to me, that I expect it will hardly be disputed: and the objection made will be, not that desire can possibly be directed to anything ultimately except pleasure and exemption from pain, but that the will is a different thing from desire; that a person of confirmed virtue, or any other person whose purposes are fixed, carries out his purposes without any thought of the pleasure he has in contemplating them, or expects to derive from their fulfilment; and persists in acting on them, even though these pleasures are much diminished, by changes in his character or decay of his passive sensibilities, or are outweighed by the pains which the pursuit of the purposes may bring upon him. All this I fully admit, and have stated it elsewhere, as positively and emphatically as any one. Will, the active phenomenon, is a different thing from desire, the state of passive sensibility, and though originally an offshoot from it, may in time take root and detach itself from the parent stock; so much so, that in the case of an habitual purpose, instead of willing the thing because we desire it, we often desire it only because we will it. This, however, is but an instance of that familiar fact, the power of habit, and is nowise confined to the case of virtuous actions. Many indifferent things, which men originally did from a motive of some sort, they continue to do from habit. Sometimes this is done unconsciously, the consciousness coming only after the action: at other times with conscious volition, but volition which has become habitual, and is put in operation by the force of habit, in opposition perhaps to the deliberate preference, as often happens with those who have contracted habits of vicious or hurtful indulgence. Third and last comes the case in which the habitual act of will in the individual instance is not in contradiction to the general intention prevailing at other times, but in fulfilment of it; as in the case of the person of confirmed virtue, and of all who pursue deliberately and consistently any determinate end. The distinction between will and desire thus understood is an authentic and highly important psychological fact; but the fact consists solely in this — that will, like all other parts of our constitution, is amenable to habit, and that we may will from habit what we no longer desire for itself, or desire only because we will it. It is not the less true that will, in the beginning, is entirely produced by desire; including in that term the repelling influence of pain as well as the attractive one of pleasure. Let us take into consideration, no longer the person who has a confirmed will to do right, but him in whom that virtuous will is still feeble, conquerable by temptation, and not to be fully relied on; by what means can it be strengthened? How can the will to be virtuous, where it does not exist in sufficient force, be implanted or awakened? Only by making the person desire virtue — by making him think of it in a pleasurable light, or of its absence in a painful one. It is by associating the doing right with pleasure, or the doing wrong with pain, or by eliciting and impressing and bringing home to the person’s experience the pleasure naturally involved in the one or the pain in the other, that it is possible to call forth that will to be virtuous, which, when confirmed, acts without any thought of either pleasure or pain. Will is the child of desire, and passes out of the dominion of its parent only to come under that of habit. That which is the result of habit affords no presumption of being intrinsically good; and there would be no reason for wishing that the purpose of virtue should become independent of pleasure and pain, were it not that the influence of the pleasurable and painful associations which prompt to virtue is not sufficiently to be depended on for unerring constancy of action until it has acquired the support of habit. Both in feeling and in conduct, habit is the only thing which imparts certainty; and it is because of the importance to others of being able to rely absolutely on one’s feelings and conduct, and to oneself of being able to rely on one’s own, that the will to do right ought to be cultivated into this habitual independence. In other words, this state of the will is a means to good, not intrinsically a good; and does not contradict the doctrine that nothing is a good to human beings but in so far as it is either itself pleasurable, or a means of attaining pleasure or averting pain.
But if this doctrine be true, the principle of utility is proved. Whether it is so or not, must now be left to the consideration of the thoughtful reader.”, kap 4.; Detta bevis är gott nog för sig, men kompletteringar har gjorts som omöjliggör alla invändningar: Alican, Necip Fikri, Mill's Principle of Utility: A Defense of John Stuart Mill's Notorious Proof, 1994;
“ It thus begins not by defending the truth of the initial commitment -- an undertaking that would lead to an infinite regress -- but instead by defending the claim that the commitment is available as a premise thanks to what people already accept. As a result, the argument is designed to accommodate well the fact that no evaluative conclusion will follow from purely nonevaluative premises.
In slightly less broad terms, and so a little more contentiously, the argument's strategy turns on the initial commitment being to the value or importance of some consideration that is generic rather than proprietary -- to the value or importance of happiness per se or of rational nature considered as such, as opposed to the value or importance of only one's own happiness or one's own rational nature. If, in fact, people only had proprietary commitments, then considerations of consistency would never move people beyond what they are already assumed to acknowledge. However, if the commitment is, as arguments of this form suppose, to the significance of some generic feature, then the argument on hand gets the leverage required to establish that the significance of that feature carries implications for the significance of others. Given the right sort of initial commitment, arguments of this form can provide a person with reason to think that other people's happiness is of value (whether or not the person ends up valuing it), or with reason to think that other people are ends in themselves (whether or not the person ends up treating others as ends). The point of such arguments is to provide each person with reason to accept a certain claim as true -- they aim to justify belief.”
Indirekt försvar: Matthew Silverstein, “In defense of happiness: A response to the Experience Machine”, Social Theory & Practice, 2000, en bortrensning av dussintänkaren Robert Nozicks förtal av utilitarianismen:
“Critics of hedonism are nearly unanimous in their rejection of this unrelenting "experientialism." In defense of this rejection, they appeal to a thought experiment first conjured up in 1974 by Robert Nozick: the experience machine. Nozick invites us to imagine a machine capable of providing us only with pleasurable experiences. This machine can stimulate our brains so that we feel we are living an ideal life. It can provide us with the experiences of writing a great novel, falling in love, or studying philosophy. And while we are on the machine, the experiences we have are indistinguishable from real experiences. If well-being consists only in psychological states or experiences, Nozick asks, why do we find the idea of a life spent on the experience machine so disturbing? Many of the most prominent philosophers of value -- including James Griffin, David Brink, Stephen Darwall, and L.W. Sumner -- take this thought experiment to be the definitive response to hedonism and, more broadly, to all mental state theories of well-being. In anthologies of moral philosophy, Nozick's experience machine is often the only argument offered in response to classical hedonism. If these philosophers are correct, mental state or experientialist theories are not tenable approaches to well-being and prudential value.” [---]
“This term "matters" occupies a central place in Nozick's argument, which might be summarized as follows.
(1) “We care about things in addition to how our lives feel from the inside.”
(2) It is not the case that "all that matters about a life is how it feels from the inside."
(3) "There is more to [a good] life than feeling happy."
Happiness is not the only thing that is intrinsically prudentially valuable; well-being does not consist of happiness alone.
Because of the ambiguity of "matters," this argument may appear relatively uncontroversial. The assertion that we care about something is synonymous with the assertion that something matters to us--given the first sense of the term "matters"--and so (2) follows from (1). Given the other sense of "matters," if something other than happiness matters to our lives, then there is more to well-being than merely happiness, and hence (3) follows from (2). It appears, therefore, that (1) does in fact imply (3). This implication relies, however, upon a slippery exchange of terms that merely look the same. "Matters" in the move from (1) to (2) does not mean the same as "matters" in the move from (2) to (3), and to assume that what matters in the first sense also matters in the second is to beg the question at hand. This connection between the two senses of the word "matters"--what we care about versus what is central to our welfare--is precisely what the critic of hedonism must demonstrate. Without the addition of further premises and arguments, Nozick's argument is invalid, and it thereby fails to refute hedonism.”, s. 279-300; En mycket gammal visdom, även om den vise Platon inte kunde hålla sina “ideala” fantasier borta från dylika insikter: dock gav redan Platon (följd senare av Epikuros, Demokritos, Lucretius m.fl.) en god ansats till Rättviseprincipen och utilitarismen:
“I said, "O thou stranger woman, thou sayest well; but, assuming Love to be such as you say, what is the use of him to men?"
"That, Socrates," she replied, "I will attempt to unfold: of his nature and birth I have already spoken; and you acknowledge that love is of the beautiful. But some one will say: Of the beautiful in what, Socrates and Diotima? – or rather let me put the question more dearly, and ask: When a man loves the beautiful, what does he desire?"
I answered her "That the beautiful may be his."
"Still," she said, "the answer suggests a further question: What is given by the possession of beauty?"
"To what you have asked,"I replied, "I have no answer ready."
"Then," she said, "Let me put the word 'good' in the place of the beautiful, and repeat the question once more: If he who loves good, what is it then that he loves?”
"The possession of the good," I said.
"And what does he gain who possesses the good?"
"Happiness," I replied; "there is less difficulty in answering that question."
"Yes," she said, "the happy are made happy by the acquisition of good things. Nor is there any need to ask why a man desires happiness; the answer is already final."
"You are right." I said.
"And is this wish and this desire common to all? and do all men always desire their own good, or only some men? - what say you?"
"All men," I replied; "the desire is common to all."
"Why, then," she rejoined, "are not all men, Socrates, said to love, but only some of them? whereas you say that all men are always loving the same things."
"I myself wonder," I said, - why this is."
"There is nothing to wonder at," she replied; "the reason is that one part of love is separated off and receives the name of the whole, but the other parts have other names."
"Give an illustration," I said.
She answered me as follows: "There is poetry, which, as you know, is complex; and manifold. All creation or passage of non-being into being is poetry or making, and the processes of all art are creative; and the masters of arts are all poets or makers."
"Very true."
"Still," she said, "you know that they are not called poets, but have other names; only that portion of the art which is separated off from the rest, and is concerned with music and metre, is termed poetry, and they who possess poetry in this sense of the word are called poets." "Very true," I said.
"And the same holds of love. For you may say generally that all desire of good and happiness is only the great and subtle power of love; but they who are drawn towards him by any other path, whether the path of money-making or gymnastics or philosophy, are not called lovers - the name of the whole is appropriated to those whose affection takes one form only-they alone are said to love, or to be lovers."
"I dare say," I replied, "that you are right."
"Yes," she added, "and you hear people say that lovers are seeking for their other half; but I say that they are seeking neither for the half of themselves, nor for the whole, unless the half or the whole be also a good. And they will cut off their own hands and feet and cast them away, if they are evil; for they love not what is their own, unless perchance there be some one who calls what belongs to him the good, and what belongs to another the evil. For there is nothing which men love but the good. Is there anything?"
"Certainly, I should say, that there is nothing."
"Then," she said, "the simple truth is, that men love the good."
"Yes," I said.
"To which must be added that they love the possession of the good?
"Yes, that must be added."
"And not only the possession, but the everlasting possession of the good?"
"That must be added too."
"Then love," she said, "may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good?"
"That is most true."”, Symposion, översatt här av 1800-tals-klassicisten Benjamin Jowett, spaltad av Demokrates (titulerad av honom och i allmänhet med latinets Symposium), 204d-206a, författad av Platon någon gång 385-360 B.C..; Lyckan som det Högsta Goda är oförneklig. Varje försök att få detta att betvivlas, döljas eller på annat sätt göras människor ofullständigt förstått är orättvisa och ondsinta nidingsdåd, eller i bästa fall beklagliga misstag.
3 Religion, astrologi, homeopati, “healing” etc. är alla irrationella, psykotiska och dogmatiska, och därför ett hot mot en förnuftig, vetenskaplig samhällsordning. Det är hög tid och högsta plikt att börja bemöta samtliga påståenden som inte kan bevisas, inte kan vara sanna, är fientliga mot ifrågasättande och/eller bortom rimligt tvivel bevisat osanna på samma sätt. Mindre allvarligt störda i sin verklighetsuppfattning bör förfäktare av dylika påståenden bemötas med lämpliga argument, men i allvarligare fall, där trots upprepad och fullgod delgivning av sådana argument visat otillräcklig respons, med psykisk vård. De personer och organisationer som sprider, producerar, förstärker eller på andra sätt uppsåtligen elller direkt bidrar till underblåsningen av vanföreställningar och irrationalism ska förbjudas och beivras. Detta är inte vad ateister brukar föresrpåka, men skäl finner man i alla fall i deras alster:
Sam Harris, The End of Faith, 2005: ”[W]hile religious people are not generally mad, their core beliefs absolutely are. This is not surprising, since most religions have merely canonized a few products of ancient ignorance and derangement and passed them down to us as though they were primordial truths.” p. 69, “So it is not that these texts have maintained their integrity over time (they haven't); it is just that they have been effectively edited by our neglect of certain of their passages. Most of what remains -- the "good parts" -- has been spared the same winnowing because we do not yet have a truly modern understanding of our ethical intuitions and our capacity for spiritual experience. If we better understood the workings of the human brain, we would undoubtedly discover lawful connections between our states of consciousness, our modes of conduct, and the various ways we use our attention. What makes one person happier than another? Why is love more conducive to happiness than hate? Why do we generally prefer beauty to ugliness and order to chaos? Why does it feel so good to smile and laugh, and why do these shared experiences generally bring people closer together? Is the ego an illusion, and, if so, what implications does this have for human life? Is there life after death? These are ultimately questions for a mature science of the mind. If we ever develop such a science, most of our religious texts will be no more useful to mystics than they now are to astronomers.
While moderation in religion may seem a reasonable position to stake out, in light of all that we have (and have not) learned about the universe, it offers no bulwark against religious extremism and religious violence. From the perspective of those seeking to live by the letter of the texts, the religious moderate is nothing more than a failed fundamentalist. He is, in all likelihood, going to wind up in hell with the rest of the unbelievers. The problem that religious moderation poses for all of us is that it does not permit anything very critical to be said about religious literalism. We cannot say that fundamentalists are crazy, because they are merely practicing their freedom of belief; we cannot even say that they are mistaken in religious terms, because their knowledge of scripture is generally unrivaled. All we can say, as religious moderates is that we don't like the personal and social costs that a full embrace of scripture imposes on us. This is not a new form of faith, or even a new species of scriptural exegesis; it is simply a capitulation to a variety of all-too-human interests that have nothing, in principle, to do with God. Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance -- and it has no bona fides, in religious terms, to put it on a par with fundamentalism. The texts themselves are unequivocal: they are perfect in all their parts. By their light, religious moderation appears to be nothing more than an unwillingness to fully submit to God's law.
By failing to live by the letter of the texts, while tolerating the irrationality of those who do, religious moderates betray faith and reason equally. Unless the core dogmas of faith are called into question -- i.e., that we know there is a God, and that we know what he wants from us -- religious moderation will do nothing to lead us out of the wilderness.
The benignity of most religious moderates does not suggest that religious faith is anything more sublime than a desperate marriage of hope and ignorance, nor does it guarantee that there is not a terrible price to be paid for limiting the scope of reason in our dealings with other human beings. Religious moderation, insofar as it represents an attempt to hold on to what is still serviceable in orthodox religion, closes the door to more sophisticated approaches to spirituality, ethics, and the building of strong communities. Religious moderates seem to believe that what we need is not radical insight and innovation in these areas but a mere dilution of Iron Age philosophy. Rather than bring the full force of our creativity and rationality to bear on the problems of ethics, social cohesion, and even spiritual experience, moderates merely ask that we relax our standards of adherence to ancient superstitions and taboos, while otherwise maintaining a belief system that was passed down to us from men and women whose lives were simply ravaged by their basic ignorance about the world. In what other sphere of life is such subservience to tradition acceptable?
Medicine? Engineering? Not even politics suffers the anachronism that still dominates our thinking about ethical values and spiritual experience.”, p. 17-18; Sam Harris, An Atheist Manifesto, 2005: “Why is religion such a potent source of human violence?
Our religions are intrinsically incompatible with one another. Either Jesus rose from the dead and will be returning to Earth like a superhero or not; either the Koran is the infallible word of God or it isn’t. Every religion makes explicit claims about the way the world is, and the sheer profusion of these incompatible claims creates an enduring basis for conflict.
There is no other sphere of discourse in which human beings so fully articulate their differences from one another, or cast these differences in terms of everlasting rewards and punishments. Religion is the one endeavor in which us-them thinking achieves a transcendent significance. If a person really believes that calling God by the right name can spell the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, then it becomes quite reasonable to treat heretics and unbelievers rather badly. It may even be reasonable to kill them. If a person thinks there is something that another person can say to his children that could put their souls in jeopardy for all eternity, then the heretic next door is actually far more dangerous than the child molester. The stakes of our religious differences are immeasurably higher than those born of mere tribalism, racism or politics.
Religious faith is a conversation-stopper. Religion is only area of our discourse in which people are systematically protected from the demand to give evidence in defense of their strongly held beliefs. And yet these beliefs often determine what they live for, what they will die for, and--all too often--what they will kill for. This is a problem, because when the stakes are high, human beings have a simple choice between conversation and violence. Only a fundamental willingness to be reasonable- -to have our beliefs about the world revised by new evidence and new arguments--can guarantee that we will keep talking to one another. Certainty without evidence is necessarily divisive and dehumanizing. While there is no guarantee that rational people will always agree, the irrational are certain to be divided by their dogmas.
It seems profoundly unlikely that we will heal the divisions in our world simply by multiplying the opportunities for interfaith dialogue. The endgame for civilization cannot be mutual tolerance of patent irrationality. While all parties to liberal religious discourse have agreed to tread lightly over those points where their worldviews would otherwise collide, these very points remain perpetual sources of conflict for their coreligionists. Political correctness, therefore, does not offer an enduring basis for human cooperation. If religious war is ever to become unthinkable for us, in the way that slavery and cannibalism seem poised to, it will be a matter of our having dispensed with the dogma of faith.
When we have reasons for what we believe, we have no need of faith; when we have no reasons, or bad ones, we have lost our connection to the world and to one another. Atheism is nothing more than a commitment to the most basic standard of intellectual honesty: One’s convictions should be proportional to one’s evidence. Pretending to be certain when one isn’t--indeed, pretending to be certain about propositions for which no evidence is even conceivable--is both an intellectual and a moral failing. Only the atheist has realized this. The atheist is simply a person who has perceived the lies of religion and refused to make them his own.”, s. 8-9.
Titus Lucretius Carus, De Rerum Natura, (Om Tingens Natur) kring 55 f.V.t., på latinsk vers, här i eng. övers. av William Ellery Leonard:
“Nor to pursue the atoms one by one,
To see the law whereby each thing goes on.
But some men, ignorant of matter, think,
Opposing this, that not without the gods,
In such adjustment to our human ways,
Can nature change the seasons of the years,
And bring to birth the grains and all of else
To which divine Delight, the guide of life,
Persuades mortality and leads it on,
That, through her artful blandishments of love,
It propagate the generations still,
Lest humankind should perish. When they feign
That gods have stablished all things but for man,
They seem in all ways mightily to lapse
From reason's truth: for ev'n if ne'er I knew
What seeds primordial are, yet would I dare
This to affirm, ev'n from deep judgment based
Upon the ways and conduct of the skies-
This to maintain by many a fact besides-
That in no wise the nature of the world
For us was builded by a power divine- (Demokrates kursiv.)
So great the faults it stands encumbered with:
The which, my Memmius, later on, for thee
We will clear up. Now as to what remains
Concerning motions we'll unfold our thought.”,
rader 167-183, Kap II.
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006: “FUNDAMENTALISM AND THE SUBVERSION OF SCIENCE[;] Fundamentalists know they are right because they have read the truth in a holy book and they know, in advance, that nothing will budge them from their belief. The truth of the holy book is an axiom, not the end product of a process of reasoning. The book is true, and if the evidence seems to contradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out, not the book. By contrast, what I, as a scientist, believe (for example, evolution) I believe not because of reading a holy book but because I have studied the evidence. It really is a very different matter. Books about evolution are believed not because they are holy. They are believed because they present overwhelming quantities of mutually buttressed evidence. In principle, any reader can go and check that evidence. When a science book is wrong, somebody eventually discovers the mistake and it is corrected in subsequent books. That conspicuously doesn't happen with holy books”, p. 274, “The intricate elegance of the flower moves Watchtower to ask: 'Did all of this happen by chance? Or did it happen by intelligent design?' Once again, no of course it didn't happen by chance. Once again, intelligent design is not the proper alternative to chance. Natural selection is not only a parsimonious, plausible and elegant solution; it is the only workable alternative to chance that has ever been suggested. Intelligent design suffers from exactly the same objection as chance. It is simply not a plausible solution to the riddle of statistical improbability. And the higher the improbability, the more implausible intelligent design becomes.
Seen clearly, intelligent design will turn out to be a redoubling of the problem. Once again, this is because the designer himself (/herself/itself) immediately raises the bigger problem of his own origin. Any entity capable of intelligently designing something as improbable as a Dutchman's Pipe (or a universe) would have to be even more improbable than a Dutchman's Pipe. Far from terminating the vicious regress, God aggravates it with a vengeance.”, s. 121.
Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, 2007:
”Religion has run out of justifications. Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, it no longer offers an explanation of anything important. Where once it used to be able, by its total command of a worldview, to prevent the emergence of rivals, it can now only impede and retard—or try to turn back—the measurable advances that we have made. Sometimes, true, it will artfully concede them. But this is to offer itself the choice between irrelevance and obstruction, impotence or outright reaction, and, given this choice, it is programmed to select the worse of the two. Meanwhile, confronted with undreamed-of vistas inside our own evolving cortex, in the farthest reaches of the known universe, and in the proteins and acids which constitute our nature, religion offers either annihilation in the name of god, or else the false promise that if we take a knife to our foreskins, or pray in the right direction, or ingest pieces of wafer, we shall be "saved." It is as if someone, offered a delicious and fragrant out-of-season fruit, matured in a painstakingly and lovingly designed hothouse, should throw away the flesh and the pulp and gnaw moodily on the pit.
Above all, we are in need of a renewed Enlightenment, which will base itself on the proposition that the proper study of mankind is man, and woman. This Enlightenment will not need to depend, like its predecessors, on the heroic breakthroughs of a few gifted and exceptionally courageous people. It is within the compass of the average person. The study of literature and poetry, both for its own sake and for the eternal ethical questions with which it deals, can now easily depose the scrutiny of sacred texts that have been found to be corrupt and confected. The pursuit of unfettered scientific inquiry, and the availability of new findings to masses of people by easy electronic means, will revolutionize our concepts of research and development.
- Very importantly, the divorce between the sexual life and fear, and the sexual life and disease, and the sexual life and tyranny, can now at last be attempted, on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse. And all this and more is, for the first time in our history, within the reach if not the grasp of everyone.”, s. 179-180, ”The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition that needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of woe, the halo of which is religion. Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers from the chain, not so that man will wear the chain without any fantasy or consolation but so that he will shake off the chain and cull the living flower.”, s. 16.
- Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell, 2006: “The widely prevailing opinion that religion is the bulwark of morality is problematic at best. The idea that heavenly reward is what motivates good people is demeaning and unnecessary; the idea that religion at its best gives meaning to a life is jeopardized by the hypocrisy trap into which we have fallen; the idea that religious authority grounds our moral judgments is useless in genuine ecumenical exploration; and the presumed relation between spirituality and moral goodness is an illusion.”, s. 307, “So, in the end, my central policy recommendation is that we gently, firmly educate the people of the world, so that they can make truly informed choices about their lives. Ignorance is nothing shameful; imposing ignorance is shameful. Most people are not to blame for their own ignorance, but if they willfully pass it on, they are to blame.”, s. 349.
- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World, 1996/1997, “Both science and democracy encourage unconventional opinions and vigorous debate. Both demand adequate reason, coherent argument, rigorous standards of evidence and honesty. Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being. If we're true to its values, it can tell us when we're being lied to. It provides a mid-course correction to our mistakes. The more widespread its language, rules, and methods, the better chance we have of preserving what Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues had in mind. But democracy can also be subverted more thoroughly through the products of science than any pre-industrial demagogue ever dreamed.
Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires vigilance, dedication, and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hopeto solve the truly serious problems that face us—and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, a world of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who saunters along.”, s. 46-47.
Richard Dawkins et al., A Devil's Chaplain, 2003: “There is nothing clumsy about a swallow; nothing blundering about a shark. What is clumsy and blundering, by the standards of human drawing boards, is the Darwinian algorithm that led to their evolution. As for cruelty, here is Darwin again, in a letter to Asa Gray of 1860:
'I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.'
Darwin's French contemporary Jean Henri Fabre described similar behaviour in a digger wasp, Ammophila:
'It is the general rule that larvae possess a centre of innervation for each segment. This is so in particular with the Grey Worm, the sacrificial victim of the Hairy Ammophila. The Wasp is acquainted with this anatomical secret: she stabs the caterpillar again and again, from end to end, segment by segment, ganglion by ganglion.'
Darwin's Ichneumonidae, like Fabre's digger wasps, sting their prey not to kill but to paralyse, so their larvae can feed on fresh (live) meat. As Darwin clearly understood, blindness to suffering is an inherent consequence of natural selection, although on other occasions he tried to play down the cruelty, suggesting that killing bites are mercifully swift. But the Devil's Chaplain would be equally swift to point out that if there is mercy in nature, it is accidental. Nature is neither kind nor cruel but indifferent. Such kindness as may appear emerges from the same imperative as the cruelty. In the words of one of Darwin's most thoughtful successors, George C. Williams,
'With what other than condemnation is a person with any moral sense supposed to respond to a system in which the ultimate purpose in life is to be better than your neighbor at getting genes into future generations, in which those successful genes provide the message that instructs the development of the next generation, in which that message is always 'exploit your environment, including your friends and relatives, so as to maximize our genes' success', in which the closest thing to a golden rule is 'don't cheat, unless it is likely to provide a net benefit?'
Bernard Shaw was driven to embrace a confused idea of Lamarckian evolution purely because of Darwinism's moral implications. He wrote, in the Preface to Back to Methuselah:
'When its whole significance dawns on you, your heart sinks into a heap of sand within you. There is a hideous fatalism about it, a ghastly and damnable reduction of beauty and intelligence, of strength and purpose, of honor and aspiration.'
His Devil's Disciple was an altogether jollier rogue than Darwin's Chaplain. Shaw didn't think of himself as religious, but he had that childlike inability to distinguish what is true from what we'd like to be true. The same kind of thing drives today's populist opposition to evolution:
'The most evolution could produce would be the idea that 'might makes right.' When Hitler exterminated approximately 10 million innocent men, women, and children, he acted in complete agreement with the theory of evolution and incomplete disagreement with everything humans know to be right and wrong ... If you teach children that they evolved from monkeys, then they will act like monkeys.', s. 7-8;
David Hume, Dialogues concerning Natura Religion, 1779:
“I venture to assert that there has never been a popular religion which represented the state of departed souls in such a way as to make it a good thing from the human point of view that there should be such a state. These fine models of religion ·that you speak of so cheerfully, Cleanthes·, are the mere product of philosophy and get no grip on the ordinary thoughts and feelings of ordinary people·. When plain folk try to imagine the after-life, death intervenes between the mind’s eye and the object; and death is so shocking to nature that it throws a gloom on all the regions that lie on the far side of it, and suggests to the general run of people the idea of Cerberus and Furies, devils, and torrents of fire and brimstone.
It is true that both fear and hope enter into religion, because both those passions agitate the human mind from time to time, and each of them forms a kind of divinity suitable to itself. But when a man is in a cheerful frame of mind he is fit for business, or company, or entertainment of any kind, and he naturally turns his attention to these and doesn’t think of religion. When gloomy and dejected, on the other hand, he hasn’t the spirit or energy to apply himself to anything in this world, so· all he can do is to brood on the terrors of the after-world, and thus make his condition worse than ever. It may indeed happen that after he has in this way engraved the religious opinions deep into his thought and imagination, some change of health or circumstances restores his good-humour and, raising cheerful prospects of the after-life, send him to the other extreme of joy and triumph. But still it must be admitted that, as terror is the driving force of religion, it is the passion that always predominates in it, and allows for only short periods of pleasure.
A further point: these bouts of excessive, extravagant joy, by exhausting the spirits, always prepare the way for equal bouts of superstitious terror and dejection. The happiest state of mind is not frenzied joy, but balanced calm. But it is impossible for a man to remain long in that state when he thinks that he lies in such profound darkness and uncertainty between an eternity of happiness and an eternity of misery. No wonder that such an opinion unhinges the ordinary frame of the mind and throws it into the utmost confusion. And though that opinion is seldom so steady in its operation that it influences all the person’s actions, it is apt to make considerable inroads on his temperament, and to produce the gloom and melancholy that are so noticeable in all devout people.
It is contrary to common sense to be anxious or terrified about what may happen to us in the after-life - on account of any opinion that we have, or to imagine that the freest use of our reason will run us into any risk in the hereafter. Such a view implies both an absurdity and an inconsistency. It is an absurdity to believe that God has human passions, and indeed one of the lowest of them, namely a restless appetite for applause. It is an inconsistency to believe that God has this human passion but doesn’t have others also, and especially a disregard for the opinions of creatures so much inferior.
To know God, says Seneca, is to worship him. All other worship - that is, all worship that goes beyond expressing one’s knowledge that God exists - is indeed absurd, superstitious, and even impious. It degrades God to the low condition of ordinary men, who are delighted to be approached with entreaties, requests, presents, and flattery. Yet this is the least of the impieties of which superstition is guilty. Commonly, superstition pushes God down to a level far below that of mankind, and represents him as a capricious demon who exercises his power without reason and without humanity! If God were inclined to be offended at the vices and follies of silly mortals who are his own workmanship, the devotees of most popular superstitions would be in for a very bad time. None of the human race would deserve his favour except for a very few, the philosophical theists, who have - or at any rate try to have - suitable notions of his divine perfections; and the only persons entitled to his compassion and leniency would be the philosophical sceptics, an almost equally small sect, whose natural modesty about their own capacities leads them to suspend - or try to suspend - all judgment with regard to such sublime and extraordinary subjects.
If the whole of natural theology, as some people seem to maintain, boils down to one simple, though somewhat ambiguous or at least undefined proposition: The cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence; if this proposition can’t be extended, varied, or explained in more detail; if it yields no inference that affects human life or can be the source of any action or forbearance from acting; and if the analogy, imperfect as it is, extends only to human intelligence, and can’t plausibly be transferred to the other qualities of the mind - if all this really is the case, what can the most curious, thoughtful, and religious man do except give a plain, philosophical assent to the proposition as often as it comes up, and believe that the arguments on which it is based outweigh the objections against it?” s. 56-58.
Victor J. Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis, 2007, belyser den fundamentalistiska kristna USA-regimens häpnadsväckande depravering:
”Theists in the United States continue to insist, contrary to the historical facts, that God is the foundation of our political system and that we and our political leaders must all abide by their particular interpretations of God's will. As Father Frank Pavone of the antiabortion organization Priests for Life told the 2000 Republican National Convention, 'The Church does not dictate the policies of the nation. The Church proclaims the truth of God to which all these [public] policies must conform.'
A far more powerful figure who holds this view and applies it with a vengeance in his decisions is US Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. He quotes St. Paul:
'Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation - For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.' (Romans 13:1-5, King James Version)
Scalia has declared, “Government—however you want to limit that concept—derives its moral authority from God.' He and Father Pavone apparently would have the United States abandon the Declaration of Independence: 'We hold these truths to be selfevident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . . 'Although American Christians have been led to believe that the 'Creator' mentioned here is their God, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote these words, was not a Christian but a deist. But my point here is that Scalia and Pavone reject the authority of the governed in favor of the authority of God, as they interpret his authority for us, of course.”, s. 246-247.
Om Gudsvanföreställningen själv:
“Let me then summarize the gods we have shown to disagree with the data. Again, an uppercase G will be used when the attributes apply specifically to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God.
Gods Who Disagree with the Data [lätt redigerad med bullets istället för nummer]
A God who is responsible for the complex structure of the world, especially living things, fails to agree with empirical fact that this structure can be understood to arise from simple natural processes and shows none of the expected signs of design. Indeed, the universe looks as it should look in the absence of design.
A God who has given humans immortal souls fails to agree with the empirical facts that human memories and personalities are determined by physical processes, that no nonphysical or extraphysical powers of the mind can be found, and that no evidence exists for an afterlife.
A God whose interactions with humans, including miraculous interventions, have been reported in scriptures is contradicted by the lack of independent evidence that these miraculous events took place and the fact that physical evidence now convincingly demonstrates that some of the most important biblical narratives, such as the Exodus, never took place.
A God who miraculously and supernaturally created the universe fails to agree with the empirical fact that no violations of physical law were required to produce the universe, its laws, or its existence rather than nonexistence. It also fails to agree with established theories, based on empirical facts, which indicate that the universe began with maximum entropy and so bears no imprint of a creator.
A God who fine-tuned the laws and constants of physics for life, in particular human life, fails to agree with the fact that the universe is not congenial to human life, being tremendously wasteful of time, space, and matter from the human perspective. It also fails to agree with the fact that the universe is mostly composed of particles in random motion, with complex structures such as galaxies forming less than 4 percent of the mass and less than one particle out of a billion.
A God who communicates directly with humans by means of revelation fails to agree with the fact that no claimed revelation has ever been confirmed empirically, while many have been falsified. No claimed revelation contains information that could not have been already in the head of the person making the claim.
A God who is the source of morality and human values does not exist since the evidence shows that humans define morals and values for themselves. This is not "relative morality." Believers and nonbelievers alike agree on a common set of morals and values. Even the most devout decide for themselves what is good and what is bad. Nonbelievers behave no less morally than believers.
The existence of evil, in particular, gratuitous suffering, is logically inconsistent with an omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent God (standard problem of evil).” s. 229-231;
Cristopher Hitchens (redaktör), The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer, 2007, en samling skrifter, artiklar och och utdrag ur verk av bl.a. Lucretius (De Rerum Natura), Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, Bertrand Russell, H. L. Mencken, Albert Einstein, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Salman Rushdie – på vårt ämne, givetvis. Inget citat här – de flesta av dem citeras här ändå -, men rekommenderas.
Baruch Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 1670, lite redigerad med bullets istället för nummer:
Men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favoured by fortune: but being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and being often kept fluctuating pitiably between hope and fear by the uncertainty of fortune's greedily coveted favours, they are consequently, for the most part, very prone to credulity.
The human mind is readily swayed this way or that in times of doubt, especially when hope and fear are struggling for the mastery, though usually it is boastful, over-confident, and vain.
This as a general fact I suppose everyone knows, though few, I believe, know their own nature; no one can have lived in the world without observing that most people, when in prosperity, are so over-brimming with wisdom (however inexperienced they may be), that they take every offer of advice as a personal insult, whereas in adversity they know not where to turn, but beg and pray for counsel from every passer-by.
No plan is then too futile, too absurd, or too fatuous for their adoption; the most frivolous causes will raise them to hope, or plunge them into despair — if anything happens during their fright which reminds them of some past good or ill, they think it portends a happy or unhappy issue, and therefore (though it may have proved abortive a hundred times before) style it a lucky or unlucky omen.
Anything which excites their astonishment they believe to be a portent signifying the anger of the gods or of the Supreme Being, and, mistaking superstition for religion, account it impious not to avert the evil with prayer and sacrifice.
Signs and wonders of this sort they conjure up perpetually, till one might think Nature as mad as themselves, they interpret her so fantastically.
Thus it is brought prominently before us, that superstition's chief victims are those persons who greedily covet temporal advantages; they it is, who (especially when they are in danger, and cannot help themselves) are wont with Prayers and womanish tears to implore help from God: upbraiding Reason as blind, because she cannot show a sure path to the shadows they pursue, and rejecting human wisdom as vain; but believing the phantoms of imagination, dreams, and other childish absurdities, to be the very oracles of Heaven.
As though God had turned away from the wise, and written His decrees, not in the mind of man but in the entrails of beasts, or left them to be proclaimed by the inspiration and instinct of fools, madmen, and birds. Such is the unreason to which terror can drive mankind!
Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear.”, Preface, § 1-9.
Spinoza’s definition av Gud: “By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite — that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality. (Explanation — I say absolutely infinite, not infinite after its kind: for, of a thing infinite only after its kind, infinite attributes may be denied; but that which is absolutely infinite, contains in its essence whatever expresses reality, and involves no negation.)” – med andra ord är Spinozas s.k. “Gud” helt enkelt allt som är: Världen. Från Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata, definitio XI, eng. Ethics Geometrically Demonstrated, el. bara Ethics. 1677. Övers. R. H. M. En Elwes. --- Visst, vill man kalla världen Gud, varsågod. Spinoza var atheist men han var inte dum.
Emma Goldman, “The Philosophy of Atheism”, Mother Earth, Feb.: 1916:
“The philosophy of Atheism has its root in the earth, in this life; its aim is the emancipation of the human race from all God-heads, be they Judaic, Christian, Mohammedan, Buddhistic, Brahministic, or what not. Mankind has been punished long and heavily for having created its gods; nothing but pain and persecution have been man's lot since gods began. There is but one way out of this blunder: Man must break his fetters which have chained him to the gates of heaven and hell, so that he can begin to fashion out of his reawakened and illumined consciousness a new world upon earth.
Only after the triumph of the Atheistic philosophy in the minds and hearts of man will freedom and beauty be realized. Beauty as a gift from heaven has proved useless. It will, however, become the essence and impetus of life when man learns to see in the earth the only heaven fit for man. Atheism is already helping to free man from his dependence upon punishment and reward as the heavenly bargain- counter for the poor in spirit.
Do not all theists insist that there can be no morality, no justice, honesty or fidelity without the belief in a Divine Power? Based upon fear and hope, such morality has always been a vile product, imbued partiy with self- righteousness, partly with hypocrisy. As to truth, justice, and fidelity, who have been their brave exponents and daring proclaimers? Nearly always the godless ones: the Atheists; they lived, fought, and died for them. They knew that justice, truth, and fidelity are not, conditioned in heaven, but that they are related to and interwoven with the tremendous changes going on in the social and material life of the human race; not fixed and eternal, but fluctuating, even as life itself. To what heights the philosophy of Atheism may yet attain, no one can prophesy. But this much can already be predicted: only by its regenerating fire will human relations be purged from the horrors of the past.
Thoughtful people are beginning to realize that moral precepts, imposed upon humanity through religious terror, have become stereotyped and have therefore lost all vitality. A glance at life today, at its disintegrating character, its conflicting interests with their hatreds, crimes, and greed, suffices to prove the sterility of theistic morality.
Man must get back to himself before he can learn his relation to his fellows. Prometheus chained to the Rock of Ages is doomed to remain the prey of the vultures of darkness. Unbind Prometheus, and you dispel the night and its horrors.
Atheism in its negation of gods is at the same time the strongest affirmation of man, and through man, the eternal yea to life, purpose, and beauty.” s. ? [Ska snarast ordna med sidhänvisningen här]
Bertrandd Russell, “Is There a God?”, 1952:
“People will tell us that without the consolations of religion they would be intolerably unhappy. So far as this is true, it is a coward's argument. Nobody but a coward would consciously choose to live in a fool's paradise. When a man suspects his wife of infidelity, he is not thought the better of for shutting his eyes to the evidence. And I cannot see why ignoring evidence should be contemptible in one case and admirable in the other. Apart from this argument the importance of religion in contributing to individual happiness is very much exaggerated. Whether you are happy or unhappy depends upon a number of factors. Most people need good health and enough to eat. They need the good opinion of their social milieu and the affection of their intimates. They need not only physical health but mental health. Given all these things, most people will be happy whatever their theology. Without them, most people will be unhappy, whatever their theology. In thinking over the people I have known, I do not find that on the average those who had religious beliefs were happier than those who had not.”, p. ?.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Der Antichrist (eng. The Antichrist), 1888, och Die Götzen-Dämmerung (eng, The Twilight of the Idols), 1888: Ur den förra, efter en lång och mycket poängfull genomgång av de kristna vanföreställningens olycksaliga konekvenser och sjukliga världsåkådning, vid analysens slutsats: “With this I come to a conclusion and pronounce my judgment. I condemn Christianity; I bring against the Christian church the most terrible of all the accusations that an accuser has ever had in his mouth. It is, to me, the greatest of all imaginable corruptions; it seeks to work the ultimate corruption, the worst possible corruption. The Christian church has left nothing untouched by its depravity; it has turned every value into worthlessness [a better translation would be “anti-value”], and every truth into a lie, and every integrity into baseness of soul. Let any one dare to speak to me of its "humanitarian" blessings! Its deepest necessities range it against any effort to abolish distress; it lives by distress; it creates distress to make itself immortal ... For example, the worm of sin: it was the church that first enriched mankind with this misery! - The "equality of souls before God" - this fraud, this pretext for the rancunes of all the base-minded - this explosive concept, ending in revolution, the modern idea, and the notion of overthrowing the whole social order - this is Christian dynamite. ... The "humanitarian" blessings of Christianity forsooth! [Sista ordet arkaiskt; ung. likt sarkasmer som. “be real!” el. “come on!” i betydelse.] To breed out of humanitas a self-contradiction, an art of self-pollution, a will to lie at any price, an aversion and contempt for all good and honest instincts! All this, to me, is the "humanitarianism" of Christianity! - Parasitism as the only practice of the church; with its anaemic [ung. “blodlösa”] and 'holy' ideals, sucking all the blood, all the love, all the hope out of life; the beyond as the will to deny all reality; the cross as the distinguishing mark of the most subterranean conspiracy ever heard of, - against health, beauty, well-being, intellect, kindness of soul - against life itself...
This eternal accusation against Christianity I shall write upon all walls, wherever walls are to be found - I have letters that even the blind will be able to see. … I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small[minded] enough, - I call it the one immortal blemish upon the human race… [Demokrates kursiv.]
And mankind reckons time from the dies nefastus when this fatality befell--from the first day of Christianity! - Why not rather from its last? - From today? - The transvaluation of all values! . . .”, s. 62, översättning 1920 av H.L. Mencken.; ur den senare nämnda boken av Nietzsche:
“MORALITY AS ANTI-NATURE
1. All passions have a phase when they are merely disastrous, when they drag down their victim with the weight of stupidity — and a later, very much later phase when they wed the spirit, when they "spiritualize" themselves. Formerly, in view of the element of stupidity in passion, war was declared on passion itself, its destruction was plotted; all the old moral monsters are agreed on this: il faut tuer les passions. The most famous formula for this is to be found in the New Testament, in that Sermon on the Mount, where, incidentally, things are by no means looked at from a height. There it is said, for example, with particular reference to sexuality: "If thy eye offend thee, pluck it out." Fortunately, no Christian acts in accordance with this precept. Destroying the passions and cravings, merely as a preventive measure against their stupidity and the unpleasant consequences of this stupidity — today this itself strikes us as merely another acute form of stupidity. We no longer admire dentists who "pluck out" teeth so that they will not hurt any more.
- To be fair, it should be admitted, however, that on the ground out of which Christianity grew, the concept of the "spiritualization of passion" could never have been formed. After all, the first church, as is well known, fought against the "intelligent" in favor of the "poor in spirit." How could one expect from it an intelligent war against passion? The church fights passion with excision in every sense: its practice, its "cure," is castratism. It never asks: "How can one spiritualize, beautify, deify a craving?" It has at all times laid the stress of discipline on extirpation (of sensuality, of pride, of the lust to rule, of avarice, of vengefulness). But an attack on the roots of passion means an attack on the roots of life: the practice of the church is hostile to life.” kap. 5, § 1 (I sin helhet), övers. av Walter Kaufmann och R.J. Hollingdale.
- Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist, 1992:
- “It should be noted that even if these theistic arguments were valid, they would not establish the creator as personal, singular, perfect or currently alive (except for "revelation," which is free to create any kind of god desired). Nor do any of the arguments address the presence of chaos, ugliness and pain in the world, which make an omnipotent deity responsible for evil.
- Many theists, when they realize their philosophical arguments have failed, will resort to stereotypical character attacks. All atheists are labeled unhappy, immoral, angry, arrogant, demonic, unfeeling wretches who have no reason to live. This is untrue and unfair. But even if it were true, that would not make theism correct.
- Since by careful examination all theistic arguments are faulty, atheism remains the only rational position”, kap. 17.
- Sam Harris noterar i sin End of Faith (se ovan) en del oklarheter i Guds långrandiga bibliska utläggningar – Dan Barker gör en vidare genomsyn, som i t.ex.: “Should we kill?
vs.
Exodus 32:27 "Thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, …. and slay every man his brother, ... companion, ... neighbor."
I Samuel 6:19 " ... and the people lamented because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter."
I Samuel 15:2,3,7,8 "Thus saith the Lord ... Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. ... And Saul smote the Amalekites ... and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword."
Numbers 15:36 "And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses."
Hosea 13:16 "they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with children shall be ripped up.", kap 23;
- Basava Premanand, Science versus Miracles, 1994, har länge observerat och avslöjat “trollkarlar” och andra “heliga män”: “Now a test for your intelligence and observation: In Gujarat a godman accepted our challenge and came forward to do a miracle. Our challenge was that he should burn a currency note which we give and produce again the -me number current note (But what he did was to take a rupee note from his pocket and ask us to see whether it was genuine or counterfeit. We were to write down the serial number of the note, burn it and give him the ash.) Then the note was burnt and the ash given to him, he mixed it with water which he drank. Immediately. he started having labour pains and through his mouth he "delivered" the same note with the same serial number. We washed it and examined it and found it was genuine. This is the simplest trick I have ever come across.”.
- Richard Carrier, Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism, 2005:
- “The adoption of Metaphysical Naturalism will benefit the survival of any society, by eliminating fatal or exhausting religious conflict and instead managing disagreement with reasonable debate, by stopping the waste of time and other resources on falsehoods and taboos, by encouraging humanistic cooperation and preservation (especially against extremism, apocalypticism, fatalism, and religiously-inspired apathy, bigotry or panic), and by instilling the proper values necessary for an enduring, contented culture, one actively interested in exploring and colonizing the universe and ending misery and want.”, s. 412.
4 Löner får sättas av marknaden, men för varje arbetare införs en begåvningsbaserad faktor varigenom lönen sedan justeras. En negativ mellanskillnad behålles staten, en positiv betalas ut av densamma. Försök, planering av, eller pågående eller avslutad åtgärd ämnad till kringgående av systemet bemöts undantagslöst med omedelbar likvidation och destruering av företags hela verksamhet och kapital, samt livstids fängelse eller jämförbart straff. Nämnda kvoter beräknas genom vetenskapliga studier av hur mycket enheter obehag utförandet av arbetet medför per enhet av arbete.
Men ju större begåvning någon har för ett arbete desto mindre blir ansträngningen per enhet arbete, och vice versa i fall av lägre begåvning. Framförallt är det individens intelligens, förstånd, som bestämmer var på löneskalan man hamnar. Därför blir ett arkitektuppdrag för en högintelligent person fullt ekvivalent med en bussförares arbete vad gäller ansträngning per enhet, såvitt den relevanta begåvningen är ekvivalent dem sinsemellan. Ju högre IQ - vilket är måttet på intelligens - du har, desto mindre förtjänar du således i regel för ett arbete per enhet, givet din mindre mängd spenderade enheter ansträngning eller m.a.o. arbete det krävt av dig, och tvärtom ju lägre din IQ. Genom att på så vis överföra pengar från högavlönade till mindre belönade, inte via skatter utan via vetenskaplig lönekorrektion, och med de tak och minimum som införs indirekt därigenom, blir inkomstskillnaderna väsentligt mycket mindre. Detta system kommer naturligtvis inte att kunna sättas i verket förrän intelligens och andra begåvningsaspekter kan mätas fysiskt i hjärnan, (såvida det inte rör sig om icke-akademiska eller aneurala aspekter). Det är emellertid snart möjligt.
5 A. Idag väljer svenskarna ”partier”. Det är från dessa makten utgår, då de sedan kan bete sig mycket oberäkneligt och i teorien hur som helst. En röst för något, utlovat av ett parti som sedan fått ens röst, kan lätt bli en röst mot just detta, såvitt ”partiet” finner lämpligt att av någon anledning – så gott som alla duger i lagens ögon – göra helt om på den aktuella punkten.
B. Partierna har olika mycket pengar och olika stor förmåga att paketera, presentera och förklara sin politik. Detta förhindrar väljarna att värdera idéer och åsikter objektivt.
C. Lobbygrupper och stora företag påverkar både lokalt, regionalt och nationellt hur politiken förs. Det är folkets roll, inte deras. Se nedan punkt F för vidare och specifikt angående massmedia inriktad kritisk analys och beskrivning av metoderna för lobbying.
D. Utländska nationer tillåts påtrycka Sverige så att opinionen eller politiken i riksdag och regering vänds i en viss riktning. Gör objektiv värdering av partiers politiska status och pålitlighet omöjlig. Inte bara lyder alltså vår regim i Stockholm sina egna löften och regler, utan inte ens sig själva i många fall.
E. Sverige har lagar mot vissa yttranden, symboler och gester.(Brottsbalken, ex. ”5 kap. Om ärekränkning 1 § Den som utpekar någon såsom brottslig eller klandervärd i sitt levnadssätt eller eljest lämnar uppgift som är ägnad att utsätta denne för andras missaktning, dömes för förtal till böter.”, ”5 § Brott som avses i 1-3 §§ får inte åtalas av annan än målsägande. Om brottet riktar sig mot någon som är under arton år eller om i annat fall målsäganden anger brottet till åtal, får åklagaren väcka åtal om detta av särskilda skäl anses påkallat från allmän synpunkt och åtalet avser
förtal och grovt förtal,
förolämpning mot någon i eller för hans eller hennes myndighetsutövning,
förolämpning mot någon med anspelning på hans eller hennes ras, hudfärg, nationella eller etniska ursprung eller trosbekännelse, eller förolämpning mot någon med anspelning på hans eller hennes homosexuella läggning.”,
Vidare: 16 Kap, 4 §: ”Om någon genom våldshandling eller oljud eller på annat dylikt sätt stör eller söker hindra allmän gudstjänst [vilken fräckhet, att i lag skydda tjänst av något staten inte har rätt att anta ens finns!], annan allmän andaktsövning, vigsel eller begravning eller dylik akt, domstolsförhandling eller annan statlig eller kommunal förrättning eller ock allmän sammankomst för överläggning, undervisning eller åhörande av föredrag, dömes för störande av förrättning eller av allmän sammankomst till böter eller fängelse i högst sex månader.”, 8 §: ”Den som i uttalande eller i annat meddelande som sprids hotar [vad menas med "hotar"?] eller uttrycker missaktning [vad missaktning är mer precis eller när den blir olaglig sägs givetvis inte] för folkgrupp [hur vet man om något är en folkgrupp? Är Tyroler en folkgrupp? Smålänningar? Nazister? Bettlare? Blottare?] eller annan sådan grupp av personer med anspelning på ras [får man anspela på hundras? – dessutom finns ju inga raser säger ju regimen, hur går detta ihop?], hudfärg, nationellt eller etniskt ursprung [vad är ”etniskt ursprung”? Släktskap med Etna? Demokrates har då inget så vitt Demokrates vet.], trosbekännelse [här ska alltså t.o.m. religion, - civilisationens själva cancer – dessa uppsättningar socionoxiska vanföreställningar vara inte bara respektabla, som ovanan bjuder, utan rentav förbjudna att "missakta", d.v.s. fördöma! Men jo, se här, Demokrates missaktar dem! Judendom, mormonism, kristendom, hinduism, sikhism, buddhism, islam, harekrishna, zoroastrism, deism, etc., etc..] eller sexuell läggning [hatar man någon ska man få säga det och varför; allt tal ska vara lagligt, även om aldrig så många bögar blir sura!] döms för hets [vore det inte mer lämpligt med ”hot” eller ”missaktning” här, det var ju det man begått?] mot folkgrupp till fängelse i högst två år eller om brottet är ringa, till böter. Är brottet grovt döms till fängelse i lägst sex månader och högst fyra år. Vid bedömande av om brottet är grovt skall särskilt beaktas om meddelandet haft ett särskilt hotfullt eller kränkande [definiera "kränkande". pladder] innehåll och spritts till ett stort antal personer [5? 10? 100?] på ett sätt som varit ägnat att väcka betydande uppmärksamhet. Lag (2002:800)”, [med undantag av 1! Givetvis är övergrepp att beivra, med det finns det andra lagar för.]: ”10 a § Den som
skildrar barn i pornografisk bild,
sprider, överlåter, upplåter, förevisar eller på annat sätt gör en sådan bild av barn tillgänglig för någon annan,
förvärvar eller bjuder ut en sådan bild av barn, förmedlar kontakter mellan köpare och säljare av sådana bilder av barn eller vidtar någon annan liknande åtgärd som syftar till att främja handel med sådana bilder, eller innehar en sådan bild av barn döms för barnpornografibrott [denna pedofila böjelse för barn är beklaglig och bildhanteringen sporrar till övergrepp, men det är irrelevant. Yttrandefriheten måste vara absolut eller också är den inte alls] till fängelse i högst två år eller, om brottet är ringa [barnen hade Burkha?], till böter eller fängelse i högst sex månader.
Med barn avses en person vars pubertetsutveckling inte är fullbordad [när är den det? Demokrates förlorade också med stort behag oskulden – fullbordad! – (även om trots orgasm Demokrates inte kunde ejakulera) som 8-åring till en 11-åring. Bl.a... skulle vi ha fått ta bilder på varandra?] eller som, när det framgår av bilden och omständigheterna kring den, är under 18 år.
Den som i yrkesmässig verksamhet eller annars i förvärvssyfte av oaktsamhet sprider en sådan bild som avses i första stycket, döms som sägs där.
Är brott som avses i första stycket att anse som grovt skall dömas för grovt barnpornografibrott till fängelse i lägst sex månader och högst sex år. Vid bedömande av om brottet är grovt skall särskilt beaktas om det har begåtts yrkesmässigt eller i vinstsyfte, [följande bisats olagligt med rätta!] utgjort ett led i brottslig verksamhet som utövats systematiskt eller i större omfattning, avsett en särskilt stor mängd bilder eller avsett bilder där barn utsätts för särskilt hänsynslös behandling [sådana bilder borde det vara lag på att delge polis, så att övergrepp kan uppdagas och förövare lagföras].
Förbuden mot skildring och innehav gäller inte den som tecknar, målar eller på något annat liknande hantverksmässigt sätt framställer en sådan bild som avses i första stycket, om bilden inte är avsedd att spridas, överlåtas, upplåtas, förevisas eller på annat sätt göras tillgänglig för andra. [Staten ska bara hålla tyst angående vad folk ritar, eller hur många som får se!] Även i andra fall skall en gärning inte utgöra brott, om gärningen med hänsyn till omständigheterna är försvarlig [på sedvanligt svenskt vis anges inte vad som är sådana omständigheter]. Lag (2005:90).”, i följande endast underkänt åt vad kursiverats ”10 b § Den som i bild skildrar sexuellt våld eller tvång med uppsåt att bilden eller bilderna sprids eller som sprider en sådan skildring, döms, om inte gärningen med hänsyn till omständigheterna är försvarlig, för olaga våldsskildring till böter eller fängelse i högst två år. Detsamma gäller den som i rörliga bilder närgånget eller utdraget skildrar grovt våld mot människor [är det någon som självmant låter sig så, som kursiverats, skildras, ingen orätt] eller djur [här däremot utrymme för straff] med uppsåt att bilderna sprids eller som sprider en sådan skildring.”, i följande paragraf endast det ingrepp mot yttrandefriheten som kursiverats (”olaga hot” kan lagföras på annat sätt än genom kriminalisering av yttranden): 4:e Kap. 5 §:”Om någon lyfter vapen mot annan eller eljest hotar med brottslig gärning på sätt som är ägnat att hos den hotade framkalla allvarlig fruktan för egen eller annans säkerhet till person eller egendom, döms för olaga hot till böter eller fängelse i högst ett år.
Är brottet grovt, döms till fängelse, lägst sex månader och högst fyra år. Lag (1993:207).”
- Noteras!: Ej något av detta ovan förenligt med demokrati. Om yttrandefrihetens absoluta oinskränkbarhet som ett fundamentalt villkor par excellance, låt oss först börja med Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, till eng. A Theologico-Political Treatise av R. H. M. Elwes, först pub. 1677:
- ”20:47) Such being the constitution of human nature, we see that laws directed against opinions affect the generous minded rather than the wicked, and are adapted less for coercing criminals than for irritating the upright; so that they cannot be maintained without great peril to the state.
- (20:48) Moreover, such laws are almost always useless, for those who hold that the opinions proscribed are sound, cannot possibly obey the law; whereas those who already reject them as false, accept the law as a kind of privilege, and make such boast of it, that authority is powerless to repeal it, even if such a course be subsequently desired.
- (20:49) To these considerations may be added what we said in Chapter XVIII. in treating of the history of the Hebrews. […]
- (20:52) This is taught not only by reason but by daily examples, for laws of this kind prescribing what every man shall believe and forbidding anyone to speak or write to the contrary, have often been passed, as sops or concessions to the anger of those who cannot tolerate men of enlightenment, and who, by such harsh and crooked enactments, can easily turn the devotion of the masses into fury and direct it against whom they will.
- (20:53) How much better would it be to restrain popular anger and fury, instead of passing useless laws, which can only be broken by those who love virtue and the liberal arts, thus paring down the state till it is too small to harbour men of talent. What greater misfortune for a state can be conceived then that honourable men should be sent like criminals into exile, because they hold diverse opinions which they cannot disguise?
- (20:55) What, I say, can be more hurtful than that men who have committed no crime or wickedness should, simply because they are enlightened, be treated as enemies and put to death [Theo van Gogh R.I.P.], and that the scaffold, the terror of evil-doers, should become the arena where the highest examples of tolerance and virtue are displayed to the people with all the marks of ignominy that authority can devise?”, Kap XX – “That in a free state every man may think what he likes, and say what he thinks.”
- Så John Stuart Mill, On Liberty:
- “First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.
- Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.
- Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience.
- Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is fit to take some notice of those who say, that the free expression of all opinions should be permitted, on condition that the manner be temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair discussion. Much might be said on the impossibility of fixing where these supposed bounds are to be placed; for if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent. But this, though an important consideration in a practical point of view, merges in a more fundamental objection. Undoubtedly the manner of asserting an opinion, even though it be a true one, may be very objectionable, and may justly incur severe censure. But the principal offences of the kind are such as it is mostly impossible, unless by accidental self-betrayal, to bring home to conviction. The gravest of them is, to argue sophistically, to suppress facts or arguments, to misstate the elements of the case, or misrepresent the opposite opinion. But all this, even to the most aggravated degree, is so continually done in perfect good faith, by persons who are not considered, and in many other respects may not deserve to be considered, ignorant or incompetent, that it is rarely possible on adequate grounds conscientiously to stamp the misrepresentation as morally culpable; and still less could law presume to interfere with this kind of controversial misconduct. With regard to what is commonly meant by intemperate discussion, namely invective, sarcasm, personality, and the like, the denunciation of these weapons would deserve more sympathy if it were ever proposed to interdict them equally to both sides; but it is only desired to restrain the employment of them against the prevailing opinion: against the unprevailing they may not only be used without general disapproval, but will be likely to obtain for him who uses them the praise of honest zeal and righteous indignation. Yet whatever mischief arises from their use, is greatest when they are employed against the comparatively defenceless; and whatever unfair advantage can be derived by any opinion from this mode of asserting it, accrues almost exclusively to received opinions. The worst offence of this kind which can be committed by a polemic, is to stigmatize those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and immoral men. To calumny of this sort, those who hold any unpopular opinion are peculiarly exposed, because they are in general few and uninfluential, and nobody but themselves feels much interested in seeing justice done them; but this weapon is, from the nature of the case, denied to those who attack a prevailing opinion: they can neither use it with safety to themselves, nor, if they could, would it do anything but recoil on their own cause. In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever deviate even in a slight degree without losing ground: while unmeasured vituperation employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who profess them.
- For the interest, therefore, of truth and justice, it is far more important to restrain this employment of vituperative language than the other; and, for example, if it were necessary to choose, there would be much more need to discourage offensive attacks on infidelity, than on religion. It is, however, obvious that law and authority have no business with restraining either, while opinion ought, in every instance, to determine its verdict by the circumstances of the individual case; condemning every one, on whichever side of the argument he places himself, in whose mode of advocacy either want of candour, or malignity, bigotry or intolerance of feeling manifest themselves; but not inferring these vices from the side which a person takes, though it be the contrary side of the question to our own: and giving merited honour to every one, whatever opinion he may hold, who has calmness to see and honesty to state what his opponents and their opinions really are, exaggerating nothing to their discredit, keeping nothing back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their favour.
- This is the real morality of public discussion: and if often violated, I am happy to think that there are many controversialists who to a great extent observe it, and a still greater number who conscientiously strive towards it.” Kap. II: “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion”, sista fyra styckena.
- Noam Chomsky, förord till förintelseförnekaren Robert Faurissons Memoire en defense, ett förord även publicerat i artikelform under titeln Rights of Freedom of Expression, October 11, 1980:
- “Some time ago I was asked to sign a petition in defense of Robert Faurisson's "freedom of speech and expression." The petition said absolutely nothing about the character, quality or validity of his research, but restricted itself quite explicitly to a defense of elementary rights that are taken for granted in democratic societies, calling upon university and government officials to "do everything possible to ensure the safety [of Faurisson] and the free exercise of his legal rights." I signed it without hesitation. [---]
The fact that I had signed the petition aroused a storm of protest in France. In the Nouvel Observateur, an ex-Stalinist who has changed allegiance but not intellectual style published a grossly falsified version of the contents of the petition, amidst a stream of falsehoods that merit no comment. This, however, I have come to regard as normal. I was considerably more surprised to read in Esprit (September 1980) that Pierre Vidal-Naquet found the petition "scandaleuse," citing specifically that fact that I had signed it (I omit the discussion of an accompanying article by the editor that again merits no comment, at least among people who retain a commitment to elementary values of truth and honesty). [---]
I do not want to discuss individuals. Suppose, then, that some person does indeed find the petition "scandaleuse," not on the basis of misreading, but because of what it actually says. Let us suppose that this person finds Faurisson's ideas offensive, even horrendous, and finds his scholarship to be a scandal. Let us suppose further that he is correct in these conclusions -- whether he is or not is plainly irrelevant in this context. Then we must conclude that the person in question believes that the petition was "scandaleuse" because Faurisson should indeed be denied the normal rights of self-expression, should be barred from the university, should be subjected to harassment and even violence, etc. Such attitudes are not uncommon. They are typical, for example of American Communists and no doubt their counterparts elsewhere. Among people who have learned something from the 18th century (say, Voltaire) it is a truism, hardly deserving discussion, that the defense of the right of free expression is not restricted to ideas one approves of, and that it is precisely in the case of ideas found most offensive that these rights must be most vigorously defended. Advocacy of the right to express ideas that are generally approved is, quite obviously, a matter of no significance. All of this is well-understood in the United States, which is why there has been nothing like the Faurisson affair here. In France, where a civil libertarian tradition is evidently not well-established and where there have been deep totalitarian strains among the intelligentsia for many years (collaborationism, the great influence of Leninism and its offshoots, the near-lunatic character of the new intellectual right, etc.), matters are apparently quite different. [---]
When the American Nazi Party calls for a parade in the largely Jewish city of Skokie, Illinois – obviously, pure provocation -- the American Civil Liberties Union defends their rights (though of course, the American Communist Party is infuriated). As far as I am aware, much the same is true in England or Australia, countries which, like the United States, have a live civil libertarian tradition [ack ej så längre]. […] One might argue, perhaps, that Nazism and anti-Semitism are much more threatening in France. I think that this is true, but it is simply a reflection of the same factors that led to the Leninism of substantial sectors of the French intelligentsia for a long period, their contempt for elementary civil libertarian principles today, and their current fanaticism in beating the drums for crusades against the Third World. There are, in short, deep-seated totalitarian strains that emerge in various guises, a matter well worth further consideration, I believe.” s. ? - ?.
F. Media kontrolleras eller rättare sagt drivs av marknadskrafter att politiskt harmonisera sig med annonsköparnas politiska intressen. Detta stör och illa förvrider opinionsbildningens demokratiskt livsviktiga karaktär av en idéernas och åsikternas jämlika kamp om opinionen. Denna kamps jämlikhet förutsätter att de olika idéerna kan och blir bedömda på sina egna moraliska, logiska och faktamässiga meriter, och på så gott det går, lika villkor i övrigt. All objektivt vilseledande reklam, liksom mer fördold marknadsföring genom sponsring, i massmedia och andra iögonfallande ställen och kanaler - icke-objektiv är den av konkurrensskäl benägen att vara – avsedd att uppnå konsumenternas val av i första hand största möjliga konsumption och efterfrågan av det marknadsförda till högsta möjliga pris; men, och inte långt därefter, ekonomiskt offervilliga i syfte att främja folkets antagande av föreställningar och preferenser gynnsamma för såväl å ena sidan företags och branschers idiosynkratiska politiska intressen, som för å andra sidan befordrandet och vidmakthållandet av marknadsekonomin som sådan och av främst producentssidans gemensamma behov och önskade samhällsvillkor. Detta gör marknadsförare och -föring till en starkt tongivande och ofta faktamässigt och moraliskt vilseledande politisk opinionsbildare. Men som sådan är den av vinningens skäl ofta likgiltig, eller om så krävs, eller av ointresse, okänslig för, och då ofta, även om ovetande, de facto mer eller mindre skadlig för, eller, slutligen, i värsta fall programmatiskt fientlig mot Rättvisan. Det gäller i de senare fallen en strid, utkämpad med marknadsföringens medel och tekniker. Detta såväl som med den direkta lobbyingens metoder: hot om utflyttningar, nedskärningar eller nedläggningar av arbetsplatser om inte ditt eller datt blir beslutat som önskat, politisk partifinansiering; som medelst stöd till fristående eller självinitierade propagandaverksamheter, dels till i egen regi skapade, drivna och finansierade propagandaverksamheter. Exempel är legio, som ekonomisk-ideologiska ”think tanks”, som universitetssponsring/samverkan, som företags eller branschorgans egna, egenfinansierade och -organiserade, säg, ”särforskning” (= i det politiska sammanhanget ifråga förklarliga, men annars för företaget inte som dess övriga forskning - född genom själva företagsidén - oftast banalt välmotiverad, och nödvändigtvis central eller annars vid eftertanke nog behövlig, utan i form av till synes ordentligt långsökta, via rentav mystiskt irrelevanta, till t.o.m. inte sällan häpnadsväckande ovidkommande forskningsprojekt. Dessa senare i stegrande grad sådana att de synes självklart som både onödiga, onyttiga och omotiverade dumheter, eller ännu värre, hela avdelningar ägnade åt sådana!). Vidare djärvare strategier föreligger ofta i skepnad av diverse korruption – mutor av politiker, statstjänstemän och andra relevanta maktpersoner -, eller som rättslig förföljelse och rättstrakasseri av verkliga, potentiella eller misstänkta politiska motståndare av alla de slag.) Forskningsfokuseringen på universitet och liknande kanske verkar illa vald, med tanke på ev. fynd som skulle kunna skada finansiörens intressen. Men sådana fynd är osannolika, framförallt genom det överlagt selektiva urvalet av forskningsfält, och –projekt, avsedda och, efter noggrann analys, bedömda att förmodligen leda till en för finansiärens gynnsam ansamling av fakta. Valet av endast för finansiörens intressen förmodat nyttig forskning, nyttig för något eller några av de för utbudssidans gemensamma intressena - för enskilda branschers eller företags väl - , vilka ytterst är uppnåendet av verkligt eller förmodat maximalt vinstgivande omständigheter. Dessa, dock , är dessvärre ofta likgiltiga inför, och är sådana att de alltför ofta i någon mån motverkar och skadar det allmänna goda, från den mest försumliga lokala inverkan, ända till den globalt katastrofala skadeverkan vi ser i växthuseffekt, vapenhandel, kalhuggning, utrotning av sällsynta djur och växter, försurning av skog och mark, och spridningen av radioaktivt avfall. Om inte marknadsföreningen och lobbyingen hade hållit opinionen i schack hade mycket kunnat ändras till det bättre. Därför är marknadsföring och lobbying oförenlig med demokrati.
Här anbefalles Noam Chomsky (vars oklara anarkistiska böjelser han själv får stå för), i bl.a. Manufacturing Consent, med uppdaterade nytryck, rekommenderas för att förstå hur storfinansens intressen styr massmedia genom konsumtion av en massmedial opinionsbildning, skapad på deras riktlinjer inte i regel på direkt kommando utan enligt marknadskrafternas evolutionära tryckfaktorer, d.v.s. enligt en marknadssystemisk strävan mot största möjliga vinst för alla parter: ”Advertising did, in fact, serve as a powerful mechanism weakening the working-class press. Curran and Seaton give the growth of advertising a status comparable with the increase in capital costs as a factor allowing the market to accomplish what state taxes and harassment failed to do, noting that these "advertisers thus acquired a de facto licensing authority since, without their support, newspapers ceased to be economically viable."
Before advertising became prominent, the price of a newspaper had to cover the costs of doing business. With the growth of advertising, papers that attracted ads could afford a copy price well below production costs. This put papers lacking in advertising at a serious disadvantage: their prices would tend to be higher, curtailing sales, and they would have less surplus to invest in improving the salability of the paper (features, attractive format, promotion, etc.). For this reason, an advertising-based system will tend to drive out of existence or into marginality the media companies and types that depend on revenue from sales alone. With advertising, the free market does not yield a neutral system in which final buyer choice decides. The advertisers' choices influence media prosperity and survival The ad-based media receive an advertising subsidy that gives them a price-marketing-quality edge, which allows them to encroach on and further weaken their ad-free (or ad-disadvantaged) rivals. Even if ad-based media cater to an affluent ("upscale") audience, they easily pick up a large part of the "downscale" audience, and their rivals lose market share and are eventually driven out or marginalized.
In fact, advertising has played a potent role in increasing concentration even among rivals that focus with equal energy on seeking advertising revenue. A market share and advertising edge on the part of one paper or television station will give it additional revenue to compete more effectively-promote more aggressively, buy more salable features and programs-and the disadvantaged rival must add expenses it cannot afford to try to stem the cumulative process of dwindling market (and revenue) share. The crunch is often fatal, and it helps explain the death of many large-circulation papers and magazines and the attrition in the number of newspapers.
From the time of the introduction of press advertising, therefore, working-class and radical papers have been at a serious disadvantage. Their readers have tended to be of modest means, a factor that has always affected advertiser interest. One advertising executive stated in I856 that some journals are poor vehicles because "their readers are not purchasers, and any money thrown upon them is so much thrown away." The same force took a heavy toll of the post World War II social-democratic press in Great Britain, with the Daily Herald, News Chronicle, and Sunday Citizen failing or absorbed into establishment systems between I960 and I967, despite a collective average daily readership of 9.3 million. As James Curran points out, with 4.7 million readers in its last year, "the Daily Herald actually had almost double the readership of The Times, the Financial Times and the Guardian combined." What is more, surveys showed that its readers "thought more highly of their paper than the regular readers of any other popular newspaper," and "they also read more in their paper than the readers of other popular papers despite being overwhelmingly working class...."
The death of the Herald, as well as of the News Chronicle and Sunday Citizen, was in large measure a result of progressive strangulation by lack of advertising support. The Herald, with 8.I percent of national daily circulation, got 3.5 percent of net advertising revenue; the Sunday Citizen got one-tenth of the net advertising revenue of the Sunday Times and one-seventh that of the Observer (on a per-thousand-copies basis). Curran argues persuasively that the loss of these three papers was an important contribution to the declining fortunes of the Labor party, in the case of the Herald specifically removing a mass-circulation institution that provided "an alternative framework of analysis and understanding that contested the dominant systems of representation in both broadcasting and the mainstream press." A mass movement without any major media support, and subject to a great deal of active press hostility, suffers a serious disability, and struggles against grave odds.
The successful media today are fully attuned to the crucial importance of audience "quality":
CBS proudly tells its shareholders that while it "continuously seeks to maximize audience delivery," it has developed a new "sales tool" with which it approaches advertisers: "Client Audience Profile, or CAP, will help advertisers optimize the effectiveness of their network television schedules by evaluating audience segments in proportion to usage levels of advertisers' products and services." In short, the mass media are interested in attracting audiences with buying power, not audiences per se; it is affluent audiences that spark advertiser interest today, as in the nineteenth century. The idea that the drive for large audiences makes the mass media "democratic" thus suffers from the initial weakness that its political analogue is a voting system weighted by income!
The power of advertisers over television programming stems from the simple fact that they buy and pay for the programs - they are the "patrons" who provide the media subsidy. As such, the media compete for their patronage, developing specialized staff to solicit advertisers and necessarily having to explain how their programs serve advertisers' needs. The choices of these patrons greatly affect the welfare of the media, and the patrons become what William Evan calls "normative reference organizations," whose requirements and demands the media must accommodate if they are to succeed.”, s. 14-16.;
G. I sin roll som försvarare av tyranniet såsom stiftare av lagar vidmakthållande det, är Riksdagen själv tyrannisk och således bestående av 349 tyranner. Dessa bör alla rannsakas för högförräderi och brott mot mänskligheten.
6 Demokratier enligt följande linjer fungerade väl under antiken. De är så nära folkstyrets ideal man kan komma. Efter att ha två mandatperioder i rad röstat igenom en avskaffning av Svea Rikes Lag och införande av en ny konstitution och lagsamling organiseras landet enligt följande. 2500 distrikt upprättas, ung. lika i antal inv.. Varje distrikt lottar fram en valberedning á 25 personersom förbereder de motioner som inlämnats av distriksboende. Dessa avgörs med JA eller NEJ, anonymt, av alla röstberättigade i distriktet. 25 personer lottas fram som kandidater till att företräda distriktet i en centralförsamling och fatta trängande eller mindre beslut. Alla får kandidera på exakt lika villkor och med exakt lika medel. 2 st väljs genom majoritetsval.
Centralförsamlingen á 5000 personer gör samma sak med 100 kandidater, varav 2 blir statens konsuler enligt majoritetsval omfattande hela det röstberättigade folket. De 2 kondulerna leder staten i krig och katastrofnöd och fattar mindre viktiga, eller mer trängande beslut, där församling inte behöver eller hinner samlas. Både lokal och nationella exekutiva har veto mot varandra. Om tid finns avgör folkförsamling tvisten, annars lotten. Ingen församling kan ändra konstutionen eller sina funktioner. Beslut ska vara så decentraliserade som möjligt. Vad som är midre viktigt resp. trängande skall vara väl avgränsat och så litet som möjligt. Val sker var 6 månad. Ingen får inneha samma roll två ggr i rad.
7 Upprättandet av en ekonomisk förening som driver projekt för att finansiera framtida kampanjer och vinnande av stöd för ideologien genom semiinformella lokalavdelningars informationsverksamhet. 2020-2030 omvandlas föreningen till ett parti, vars namn för tillfället är i behov av sekretess. Under tiden har värvats av den ideella föreningen XXX som mål 250 000 medlemmar som i sin politiska verksamhet utåt uppträder i uniform. Som parti kommer seminismen att verka för 10 000 000 invandrare på 5 år, och 50 000 000 invandrare på 10 år. Dessas röster skall tillgodoräknas partiet i deras tre första val. Mer om denna begränsade invandring kommer att dryftas i en inom det snaraste publicerad punkt.
8 Överallt där konforma eller t.o.m. uniformerade massrörelser kämpat mot icke-koforma, icke-uniformerade, och där en enhetlig stam-liknande partikultur upprätthållits hos det ena lägret, medan motståndarna varit splittrade och nästan ”postmodernt” (läs: katastrofalt) individualistiska i sin framtoning, har de förra, i ritualer, klädsel, organisering och språkbruk enhetliga, oftast segrat. Tyskland på 1930-talet och Spanien, med sina socialter, anarkister, anarkosyndikalister, trotskister, stalinister och t.o.m extremkonservativa baskiska nationalister m.fl. - i samma ordning samlade i socialistiska UGT, anarkosyndikalistiska FAI/CNT, trotskistinfluerade POUM, Kominterns (d.v.s. ytterst Stalins) Internationella Brigader (Brigadas Internacionales) och Baskiens basker som ”Carlister”, i röd basker - i inbördeskriget 1936-1939 är typexempel på detta. Stalin sin vana trogen gjorde givetvis saken värre genom att anstifta utrensningar bland anarkister och andra ”opålitliga”. Se Paul Preston, Franco, och Paul Preston, A Concise History of the Spanish Civil War för referenser. Inte bara mellan utom även inom dessa organisatiner pågick ständigt tvister och någon egentlig militär var det aldrig tal om, bara en hlavt-om-halvt civilklädd, politiskt intressemässigt disparat semipöbel som bara genom stora förluster och Francos medvetet förlångsammade avancemang lyckades hålla ut några få år. Bara Ernst Thälmanns, den f.d. tyske kommunistledarens, trupper hade någon riktig uppfattning om vad krig kräver av disciplin, hierarki och konformism. (Och de var vana vid uniformen, alla stora partier hade sina uniformerade privatarméer i Tyskland under 30-talet. Det hjälpte dock föga, sedan Stalin beordrat dem att främst bekämpa socialdemokraterna (också de med partimilis i uniform), och nonchalera den gravt underskattade Hitler. Thälmanns Rote Front var icke desto mindre fullt i klass med S.A. i antal och slagkraft; 110 000 medlemmar 1927 under Thälmann, medan S.A. hade uppnått endast 60-80 000 1930! Se )).
Borgerliga vänsterintellektuella som Foucault och Derrida och den abstrakta uppvisningsindustriens verksamma har efter kriget stämplat all konformism som förtryck (Michel Foucault, t.ex. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, som t.ex. förfasas över att staten har mage att hålla efter efter brottsliga beteenden!; Jaques Derrida, en fransk charlatan som poserade som filosof, med om möjligt ännu mer uppstyltat, syntaktiskt torterat, långrandigt, labyrintiskt nonsens av svåra, missuppfattade eller egenhändigt påhittade ord och koncept, alltsammans bl.a. på något vis hävdat som en bevisning för att ”dikotomier” – som ex. charlatan och seriös – är ”godtyckliga” och ”konstruerade”. Ex: Of Grammatology, 1967/eng. 1976. Från detta praktverk av logisk och språklig hjärndöd utgick sedan andra i den Hegel-rotade ”kontinentala” kvacksalvarfilosofien, som t.ex. den tydligt testosteronstinna Judith Butler, som drog slutsatsen att alla mänskliga betydelsefulla klassifikationer – särskilt kön - är ”sociala konstruktioner”, och som sådana förtryck.
Men alla dessa bluffmakare, bland vilka måste nämnas den långa, vidriga franska serien av i regel borgerliga, lata, narcissistiska, sensationslystna, dilettanta, pseudointellektuella, pladdriga karriäristcharlataner, med en för tiden fashionabel men överlag sett ovidkommande eller endast opportunistisk vänsterimage – bl.a. Dürkheim, Sartre, Lévi-Strauss, Latour, Lyotard, de Beauvoir, Lévinas, Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, de Man, Deleuze, Barthes, Bordieu, Baudrillard, Kristeva, Cixous och Irigaray, har alltid varit Rättvisans motståndare, med sin antirationalistiska, antivetenskapliga, moraliskt ansvarslösa, politiskt obegripliga, världsfrånvända, destruktiva och om inte för att väcka anstöt, skapa kaos eller röna oförtjänt uppmärksamhet, annars helt planlösa verksamhet. Detta gemensamt såklart med den lika genomruttna Frankfurtskolan, ett tag i Tyskland, sedan i USA, sedan åter i Tyskland, med grundidéen att marxismen bör och ska uppnås genom kulturell revolution – i realiteten hippiefiering, beteendeabnormalism och all slags normöverträdelse i seder, hygien, språkbruk, klädsel, könsmarkörer, respekt för vetenskap och civilisation, sexualmoral, famljenormer, etc - allt för att komma bort från den påstått förtryckande och för allt ont lastbara ”auktoritära personlighetstypen”. Här var Herbert Marcuse, bosatt i USA, en centralgestalt i sitt esse, en av Frankfurtskolans främste. Vänstern skulle röka på, ta på sig kaftanen, trippa på LSD, leka indier, strunta i alla medborgerliga plikter, undvika kunskap och lärdom – bara fördomar och hjärntvätt ändå - och genom att rasera all hemsk ordningsamhet och civilisering göra folket moget för marxismen. En liknande idiotisk inställning och konsekvensanalys får man leta efter.
Tråkigt nog har många av dessa personer ovan, det erkänner Demokrates villigt, varit mycket begåvade och driftiga. Hade de ägnat sig åt seriöst lärande och vetenskap istället, eller förnuftig, välinformerad, realistisk och ärlig politisk verksamhet, uttryckt utan retoriska finter, vilseledande språklig tillkrångling, eller andra sofisterier avsedda att bedra eller komma undan med nonsens, utan uppriktigt och enligt sitt bästa vetande, och när i skrift, på antingen god vetenskaplig prosa, eller åtminstone i för gemene man begripliga och tydligt ärliga ordalag, såvitt sådana är möjliga, och så gott man kunnat har ansträngt sig för att finna och formulera dem, så skulle dessa vetenskapens förföljare utan tvekan gjort världen mycket gott. [detta parti inom kort försett med referenser, citat, och i övrigt kommer flera artiklar publiceras jämte detta dokument som går igenom saken].
Trots detta eviga tjat om hur fint det är att vara unik och att man ska se till att vara det så mycket man bara kan, så är fundamental mänsklig konformism ofrånkomlig – vi har alla våra konforma kroppar, vårt konforma språk, våra konforma gester, vårt konforma moraliska sinne, våra konforma sexuella instinkter, våra konforma åldrar, våra grundläggande konforma rädslor och lustkällor.
Demokrates hypotes, i betraktande av alla ursprungsbefolkningars starka sammanhållning kring vissa beteenden: former av klädsel, kroppspråk, riter, symboler, etc; samt värderingar etc..; - massajer i sina röda mantlar, Papua Nya Guineaner med sina penisfodral, samer och indianer i sina dräkter och speciella livsstilar, bushmän, det en gång stolta Zulu-folket, antikens grymma men formidbla Sparta, Amish-folket m.fl. - är att dessa är trygghetsskapande och styrkegivande för gruppen inombords, och en källa till respekt och en uppfattning av kompakt motståndskraft mot omgivande grupper, sedda utifrån dessas perspektiv. I modern politik, där stammarna är partier, fackföreningar och blocktillhörighet, omsätts detta till en uniformerad politisk rörelse med gemensamt ikoner, rangordning, kroppsspråk, symbolik, moral (vilket varje, t.o.m. extremast möjliga anarkister tyvärr aldrig kan vara utan – politik är moral angående staten och samhället), ritualer, massmöten, ett gemensamt språk och språkbruk, en tydlig form av rättvist ledarskap, och en solidaritet inom gruppen, intill döden. Kort sagt – en rörelse drastiskt draperad i ”fascistisk estetik”.
Man må klaga aldrig så mycket på detta, men den mänskliga naturen har, genom den stöpning evolutionen givit den, fått dessa preferenser, och i valet mellan en oklart politisk, motsägelsefull, brokig, bråkig och bräcklig mobb, och en i alla fall till synes enad, ordnad och konform politisk rörelse, tydlig och konsekvent i sitt budskap och med en kraftfull framtoning, så väljer Svensson, i varje fall i de dåliga tider som vi nu står inför, den senare. Att det är människans natur att föredra stamlika miljöer, oavsett deras varierande syften, och så även politiska miljöer som härmar stamlivet, stöder Demokrates på följande verk: E. O. Wilson, On Human Nature, 1978, och av densamme under årens gang och även på senare tid flera relevant böcker, t.ex. Consilience:
“Meanwhile, what we know or (to be completely outright) what we think we know, about the hereditary basis of human nature can be expressed by linking together three determining levels of biological organization. I will present them from the top down, in a sequence that begins with the universals of culture, proceeds to epigenetic rules of social behavior, and ends in a second look at behavioral genetics. In a classic 1945 compendium, the American anthropologist George P. Murdock listed the universals of culture, which he defined as the social behaviors and institutions recorded in the Human Relations Area Files for every one of the hundreds of societies studied to that time. There are sixty-seven universals in the list: age-grading, athletic sports, bodily adornment, calendar, cleanlinesstraining, community organization, cooking, cooperative labor, cosmology, courtship, dancing, decorative art, divination, division of labor, dream interpretation, education, eschatology, ethics, ethnobotany, etiquette, faith healing, family feasting, fire-making, folklore, food taboos, funeral rites, games, gestures, gift-giving, government, greetings, hair styles, hospitality, housing, hygiene, incest taboos, inheritance rules, ioking, kin groups, kinship nomenclature, language, law, luck superstitions, magic, marriage, mealtimes, medicine, obstetrics, penal sanctions, personal names, population policy, postnatal care, pregnancy usages, property rights, propitiation of supernatural beings, puberty customs, religious rifual, residence rules, sexual restrictions, soul concepts, status differentiation, surgery, tool-making, trade, visiting, weather control, and weaving.
It is tempting to dismiss these traits as not truly diagnostic for human beings, not really genetic, but inevitable in the evolution of any species that attains complex societies based on high intelligence and complex language, regardless of their hereditary predispositions. But that interpretation is easily refuted.”, s. 160, “Further evidence of human cultural universals is the dual origin of civilization in the Old and New Worlds, evolved in mutual isolation yet remarkably convergent in broad detail. The second part of “the grand experiment” began twelve thousand or more years ago, when the New World was invaded by nomadic tribes from Siberia. The colonists were at that time Paleolithic huntergatherers who most likely lived in groups of a hundred or fewer. In the centuries to follow they spread out through the length of the New World, from the arctic tundra to the icy forests of Tierra del Fuego ten thousand miles distant, splitting as they went into local tribes that adapted to each of the land environments they encountered. Along the way, here and there, some of the societies evolved into chiefdoms and imperial states remarkably similar in their basic structure to those in the Old World, s. 161-162, “A second productive insight, contributed by sociobiology, is that prepared learning of social behavior, like all other classes of epigenesis, is usually adaptive: It confers Darwinian fitness on organisms by improving their survival and reproduction. The adaptiveness of the epigenetic rules of human behavior is not the exclusive result of either biology or culture. It arises from subtle manifestation of both. One of the most efficient ways to study the epigenetic rules of human social behavior is by methods of conventional psychology, in formed by the principles of evolutionary process. For this reason the scientists concentrating on the subject often call themselves evolutionary psychologists. Theirs is a hybrid discipline, drawn from both sociobiology - the systematic study of the biological basis of social behavior in all kinds of organisms, including humans - and psychology, the systematic study of the basis of human behavior. Even our growing understanding of gene-culture coevolution, however, and in the interest of simplicity, clarity, and - on occasion - intellectual courage in the face of ideological hostility, evolutionary psychology is best regarded as identical to human sociobiology.”, s. 163,
“Reification is the quick and easy mental algorithm that creates order in a world otherwise overwhelming in flux and detail. One of its manifestations is the dyadic instinct, the proneness to set up two part classifications in treating socially important arrays. Societies everywhere break people into in-group versus out-group, child versus adult, kin versus non kin, married versus single, and activities into sacred and profane, good and evil. They fortify the boundaries of each division with taboo and ritual. To change from one division to the other requires initiation ceremonies, weddings, blessings, ordinations and other rites of passage that mark every culture.”, s. 167,
“Choices are group dependent; that much is obvious. But what is less well known is that the power of peer influence varies strikingly from category to category of behavior. Clothing style, for example, is almost wholly dependent on peer influences, while incest avoidance is largely independent [of group membership].”, s. 223, (och nota bene!) “The dark side to the inborn propensity to moral behavior is xenophobia. Because personal familiarity and common interest are vital in social transactions, moral sentiments evolved to be selective. And so it has ever been, and so it will ever be. People give trust to strangers with effort, and true compassion is a commodity in chronically short supply. Tribes cooperate only through carefully defined treaties and other conventions. They are quick to imagine themselves victims of conspiracies by competing groups [som vi vet inte behöver vara reella hot: judar, illuminati, skull’n bones, rosencreutzare, scientologer, “gula faran”, etc. – vilket dock inte betyder att det inte finns reella fiender: storfinansen, de 349 tyrannerna, partipolitiken, “religionen”/vidskepelsen, vänsterns idiotflum, continental-“filosofien”, massmediesvindleriet, förnekandet av människans natur och medfödda metala grupp- och individskillnader, attackena på rationalismen, etc.], and they are prone to dehumanize and murder their rivals during periods of severe conflict. They cement their own group loyalties by means of sacred symbols and ceremonies. Their mythologies are filled with epic victories over menacing enemies.”, s. 277.
Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, 2002 (också med mycket att säga om ovannämnda intellektuella bluffmakare och vetenskapliga posörer):
“The human brain equips us to thrive in a world of objects, living things, and other people. Those entities have a large impact on our well-being, and one would expect the brain to be well suited to detecting them and their powers. Failing to recognize a steep precipice or a hungry panther or a jealous spouse can have significant negative consequences for biological fitness, to put it mildly.
The fantastic complexity of the brain is there in part to register consequential facts about the world around us. But this truism has been rejected by many sectors of modern intellectual Iife. According to the relativistic wisdom prevailing in much of academia today, reality is socially constructed by the use of languages, stereotypes and media images. The idea that people have access to facts about the world is naive, say the proponents of social constructionism, science studies, cultural studies, critical theory, postmodernism, and deconstructionism. In their view, observations are always infected by theories, and theories are saturated with ideology and political doctrines, so anyone who claims to have the facts or know the truth is just trying to exert power over everyone else.
Relativism is entwined with the doctrine of the Blank Slate in two ways. One is that relativists have a penny-pinching theory of psychology in which the mind has no mechanisms designed to grasp reality; all it can do is passively download words, images, and stereotypes from the surrounding culture. The other is the relativists' attitude toward science. Most scientists regard their work as an extension of our everyday ability to figure out what is out there and how things work. Telescopes and microscopes amplifies the visual system; theories formalize our hunches about cause and effect; experiments refine our drive to gather evidence about events we cannot witness directly. Relativist movements agree that science is perception and cognition writ large, but they draw the opposite conclusion: that scientists, like laypeople, are unequipped to grasp an objective reality. Instead, their advocates say, "Western science is only one way of describing reality, nature, and the way things work - a very effective way, certainly, for the production of goods and profits, but unsatisfactory in most other respects. It’s an imperialist arrogance which ignores the sciences and insights of most other cultures and times."
Nowhere is this more significant than in the scientific study of politically charged topics such as race, gender, violence, and social organization. Appealing to "facts" or "the truth" in connection with these topics is just a ruse, the relativists say, because there is no "truth" in the sense of an objective yardstick independent of cultural and political presuppositions”, s. 197-198,
Om de nedärvda förmågorna, drifter och instinktivt uppfattade behoven, önskemålen och rädslorna, etc.:
“The most obvious human tragedy comes from the difference between our feelings toward kin and our feelings toward non-kin, one of the deepest divides in the living world. When it comes to love and solidarity among people, the relative viscosity of blood and water is evident in everything from the clans and dynasties of traditional societies to the clogging of airports during holidays with people traveling across the world to be with their families. It has also been borne out by quantitative studies. In traditional foraging societies, genetic relatives are more likely to live together, work in each other's gardens, protect each other, and adopt each other's needy or orphaned children, and are less likely to attack, feud with, and kill each other. Even in modern societies, which tend to sunder ties of kinship, the more closely two people are genetically related, the more inclined they are to come to one another's aid, especially in life-or-death situations.” s. 245.
“In a species equipped with language, an intuitive psychology, and a willingness to cooperate, a group can pool the hard-won discoveries of members present and past and end up far smarter than a race of hermits. Hunter-gatherers accumulate the know-how to make tools, control fire, outsmart prey, and detoxify plants, and can live by this collective ingenuity even if no member could re-create it all from scratch. Also, by coordinating their behavior (say, in driving game or taking turns watching children while others forage), they can act like a big multi-headed, multi-limbed beast and accomplish feats that a die-hard individualist could not. And an array of interconnected eyes, ears, and heads is more robust than a single set with all its shortcomings and idiosyncrasies.” s. 63,
“The second motive for conformity is normative, the desire to follow the norms of a community, whatever they are. But this, too, is not as stupidly lemminglike as it first appears. Many cultural practices are arbitrary in their specific form but not in their reason for being. There is no good reason for people to drive on the right side of the road as opposed to the left side, or vice versa, but there is every reason for people to drive on the same side. So an arbitrary choice of which side to drive on, and a widespread conformity with that choice, make a great deal of sense. Other examples of arbitrary but coordinated choices, which economists called “cooperative equilibria,” include money, designated days of rest, and the pairings of sound and meaning that make up the words in a language.”, s. 64,
“Shared arbitrary practices also help people cope with the fact that while many things in life are arranged along a continuum, decisions must often be binary. Children do not become adults instantaneously, nor do dating couples become monogamous partners. Rites of passage and their modern equivalent, pieces of paper like ID cards and marriage licenses, allow third parties to decide how to treat ambiguous cases — as a child or as an adult, as committed or as available — without endless haggling over differences of opinion.[…]
And the fuzziest categories of all are other people's intentions. Is he a loyal member of the coalition (one that I would want to have in my foxhole) or a quisling who will bail out when times get tough? Does his heart lie with his father's clan or with his father-in-law's? Is she a suspiciously merry widow or just getting on with her life? Is he dissing me or just in a hurry? Initiation rites, tribal badges, prescribed periods of mourning, and ritualized forms of address may not answer these questions definitively, but they can remove clouds of suspicion that would otherwise hang over people's heads.”, s. 64.
“Culture, then, is a pool of technological and social innovations that people accumulate to help them live their lives, not a collection of arbitrary roles and symbols that happen to befall them. This idea helps explain what makes cultures different and similar. When a splinter group leaves the tribe and is cut off by an ocean, a mountain range, or a demilitarized zone, an innovation on one side of the barrier has no way of diffusing to the other side. As each group modifies its own collection of discoveries and conventions, the collections will diverge and the groups will have different cultures. Even when two groups stay within shouting distance, if their relationship has an edge of hostility they may adopt behavioral identity badges that advertise which side someone is on, further exaggerating any differences. This branching and differentiation is easily visible in the evolution of languages, perhaps the clearest example of cultural evolution. And as Darwin pointed out, it has a close parallel in the origin of species, which often arise when a population splits in two and the groups of descendants evolve in different directions. As with languages and species, cultures that split apart more recently tend to be more similar. The traditional cultures of Italy and France, for example, are more similar to each other than either is to the cultures of the Maoris and Hawaiians.”
The psychological roots of culture also help explain why some bits of culture change and others stay put. Some collective practices have enormous inertia because they impose a high cost on the first individual who would try to change them. A switch from driving on the left to driving on the right could not begin with a daring nonconformist or a grass-roots movement but would have to be imposed from the top down (which is what happened in Sweden at 5 a.m., Sunday, September 3, 1967). Other examples are laying down your weapons when hostile neighbors are armed to the teeth, abandoning the QWERTY keyboard layout, and pointing out that the emperor is not wearing any clothes.”, s. 65-66,
“Unrelated people who want to share like a family create mythologies about a common flesh and blood, a shared ancestry, and a mystical bond to a territory (tellingly called a natal land, fatherland, motherland, or mother country). They reinforce the myths with sacramental meals, blood sacrifices, and repetitive rituals, which submerge the self into the group and create an impression of a single organism rather than a federation of individuals.”, s. 247,
“But they [the sciences] do speak to the parts of the visions that are general claims about how the mind works. Those claims may be evaluated against the facts, just like any empirical hypothesis. The Utopian vision that human nature might radically change in some imagined society of the remote future is, of course, literally unfalsifiable, but I think that many of the discoveries recounted in preceding chapters make it unlikely. Among them I would include the following:
The primacy of family ties in all human societies and the consequent appeal of nepotism and inheritance.
The limited scope of communal sharing in human groups, the more common ethos of reciprocity, and the resulting phenomena of social loafing and the collapse of contributions to public goods when reciprocity cannot be implemented.
The universality of dominance and violence across human societies (including supposedly peaceable hunter-gatherers) and the existence of genetic and neurological mechanisms that underlie it.
The universality of ethnocentrism and other forms of group-against-group hostility across societies, and the ease with which such hostility can be aroused in people within our own society.
The partial heritability of intelligence, conscientiousness, and antisocial tendencies, implying that some degree of inequality will arise even in perfectly fair [no, for they would be perfected by the seminist progressive wage principle] economic systems; and that we therefore face an inherent tradeoff between equality and freedom.
The prevalence of defense mechanisms, self-serving biases, and cognitive dissonance reduction, by which people deceive themselves about their autonomy, wisdom, and integrity.
The biases of the human moral sense, including a preference for kin and friends, a susceptibility to a taboo mentality, and a tendency to confuse morality with conformity [my italics], rank, cleanliness, and beauty.”, s. 294.;
Richard Dawkins, “Postmodernism Disrobed”, Nature 394:1998, s. 141-143, ang. den ack så hippa “postmodernismen” (hela artikeln är dö: “Hardly able to believe what he read in this book, [Alan] Sokal followed up the references to postmodern literature, and found that Gross and Levitt did not exaggerate. He resolved to do something about it. In Gary Kamiya’s words:
“Anyone who has spent much time wading through the pious, obscurantist, jargon-filled cant that now passes for ‘advanced’ thought in the humanities knew it was bound to happen sooner or later: some clever academic, armed with the not-so-secret passwords (‘hermeneutics,’ ‘transgressive,’ ‘Lacanian,’ ‘hegemony,’ to name but a few) would write a completely bogus paper, submit it to an au courant journal, and have it accepted . . . Sokal’s piece uses all the right terms. It cites all the best people. It whacks sinners (white men, the ‘real world’), applauds the virtuous (women, general metaphysical lunacy) . . . And it is complete, unadulterated bullshit – a fact that somehow escaped the attention of the high-powered editors of Social Text, who must now be experiencing that queasy sensation that afflicted the Trojans the morning after they pulled that nice big gift horse into their city.”
Sokal’s paper must have seemed a gift to the editors because this was a physicist saying all the right-on things they wanted to hear, attacking the ‘post-Enlightenment hegemony’ and such uncool notions as the existence of the real world. They didn’t know that Sokal had also crammed his paper with egregious scientific howlers, of a kind that any referee with an undergraduate degree in physics would instantly have detected. It was sent to no such referee. The editors, Andrew Ross and others, were satisfied that its ideology conformed to their own, and were perhaps flattered by references to their own works. This ignominious piece of editing rightly earned them the 1996 Ig Nobel Prize for literature.
Notwithstanding the egg all over their faces, and despite their feminist pretensions, these editors are dominant males [överraskad?] in the academic lekking arena. Andrew Ross himself has the boorish, tenured confidence to say things like "I am glad to be rid of English Departments. I hate literature, for one thing, and English departments tend to be full of people who love literature"; and the yahooish complacency to begin a book on ‘science studies’ with these words: "This book is dedicated to all of the science teachers I never had. It could only have been written without them." He and his fellow ‘cultural studies’ and ‘science studies’ barons are not harmless eccentrics at third rate state colleges. Many of them have tenured professorships at some of America’s best universities. Men of this kind sit on appointment committees, wielding power over young academics who might secretly aspire to an honest academic career in literary studies or, say, anthropology. I know – because many of them have told me – that there are sincere scholars out there who would speak out if they dared, but who are intimidated into silence. To them, Alan Sokal will appear as a hero, and nobody with a sense of humour or a sense of justice will disagree. It helps, by the way, although it is strictly irrelevant, that his own left wing credentials are impeccable.
In a detailed post-mortem of his famous hoax, submitted to Social Text but predictably rejected by them and published elsewhere, Sokal notes that, in addition to numerous half truths, falsehoods and non-sequiturs, his original article contained some "syntactically correct sentences that have no meaning whatsoever." He regrets that there were not more of the latter: "I tried hard to produce them, but I found that, save for rare bursts of inspiration, I just didn’t have the knack." If he were writing his parody today, he’d surely have been helped by a virtuoso piece of computer programming by Andrew Bulhak of Melbourne: the Postmodernism Generator. Every time you visit it, at http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo , it will spontaneously generate for you, using faultless grammatical principles, a spanking new postmodern discourse, never before seen [den funkar verkligen – det vore inte omöjligt att många “pomo”:s rentav hittat sin väg till ett VG på LU! Läs: Tiiiiiina & Co.] . I have just been there, and it produced for me a 6,000 word article called "Capitalist theory and the subtextual paradigm of context" by "David I.L.Werther and Rudolf du Garbandier of the Department of English, Cambridge University" (poetic justice there, for it was Cambridge who saw fit to give Jacques Derrida an honorary degree). Here’s a typical sentence from this impressively erudite work:
“If one examines capitalist theory, one is faced with a choice: either reject neotextual materialism or conclude that society has objective value. If dialectic desituationism holds, we have to choose between Habermasian discourse and the subtextual paradigm of context. It could be said that the subject is contextualised into a textual nationalism that includes truth as a reality. In a sense, the premise of the subtextual paradigm of context states that reality comes from the collective unconscious.”
Visit the Postmodernism Generator. It is a literally infinite source of randomly generated syntactically correct nonsense, distinguishable from the real thing only in being more fun to read. You could generate thousands of papers per day, each one unique and ready for publication, complete with numbered endnotes. Manuscripts should be submitted to the ‘Editorial Collective’ of Social Text, double-spaced and in triplicate.
As for the harder task of reclaiming humanities and social studies departments for genuine scholars, Sokal and Bricmont have joined Gross and Levitt in giving a friendly and sympathetic lead from the world of science. We must hope that it will be followed.”, s. 142-143;
Desmond Morris, The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal, 1967:
”In all exploratory behaviour, whether artistic or scientific, there is the ever-present battle between the neophilic and neophobic urges. The former drives us on to new experiences, makes us crave for novelty. The latter holds us back, makes us take refuge in the familiar. We are constantly in a state of shifting balance between the conflicting attractions of the exciting new stimulus and the friendly old one. If we lost our neophilia we would stagnate. If we lost our neophobia, we would rush headlong into disaster.
This state of conflict does not merely account for the more obvious fluctuations in fashions and fads, in hair-styles and clothing, in furniture and cars; it is also the very basis of our whole cultural progression. We explore and we retrench, we investigate and we stabilise. Step by step we expand our awareness and understanding both of ourselves and of the complex environment we live in.”, s. 122-123,
“This leaves us with the question of aggression in relation to the social dominance hierarchy. The individual, as opposed to the places he frequents, must also be defended. His social status must be maintained and, if possible improved, but it must be done cautiously, or he will Jeopardise his co-operative contacts. This is where all the subtle aggressive and submissive signalling described earlier comes in to play.
Group co-operativeness demands and gets a high degree of conformity in both dress and behaviour, but within the bounds of this conformity there is still great scope for hierarchy competitiveness. Because of these conflicting demands it reaches almost incredible degrees of subtlety. The exact form of the knotting of a tic, the precise arrangement of the exposed section of a breast-pocket handkerchief, minute distinctions in vocal accent, and other such seemingly trivial characteristics, take on a vital social significance in determinin the social standing of the individual. An experience member of society can read .them off at a glance. He would be totally at a loss to do so if suddenly jettisoned into the social hierarchy of. New Guinea tribesmen, but in his own culture he is rapidly forced to become an expert. In themselves these tiny differences of dress and habit are utterly meaningless, but in relation to the game of juggling for position and holding it in the dominance hierarchy they are all-important.
We did not evolve, of course, to live in huge conglomerations of thousands of individuals. Our behaviour is designed to operate in small tribal groups probably numbering well under a hundred individuals. In such situations every member of the tribe will be known personally to every other member, as is the case with other species of apes and monkeys today. In this type of social organisation it is easy enough for the dominance hierarchy to work itself out and become stabilised, with only gradual changes as members become older and die. In a massive city community the situation is much more stressful. Every day exposes the urbanite to sudden contacts with countless strangers, a situation unheard-of in any other primate species. It is impossible to enter into personal hierarchy relationships with all of them, although this would be the natural tendency. Instead they are allowed to go scurrying by, undominated and undominating. In order to facilitate this lack of social contact, anti-touching behaviour patterns develop. This has already been mentioned when dealing with sexual behaviour, where one sex accidentally touches another, but it applies to more than simply the avoidance of sexual behaviour. It covers the whole range of social-relationship initiation. By carefully avoiding staring at one another, gesturing in one another’s direction, signalling in any way, or making physical bodily contact, we manage to survive in an otherwise impossibly overstimulating social situation. If the notouching rule is broken, we immediately apologise to make it clear that it was purely accidental.
Anti-contact behaviour enables us to keep our number of acquaintances down to the correct level for our species. We do this with remarkable consistency and uniformity. If you require confirmation, take the address or phone books of a hundred widely different types of city-dwellers and count up the number of personal acquaintances listed there. You will find that nearly all of them know well about the same number of individuals, and that this number approximates to what we would think of as a small tribal group. In other words, even in our social encounters we are obeying the basic biological rules of our ancient ancestors.”, s. 161-163.
Matt Ridley, Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes us Human, 2003: ;
Donald Brown, Human Universals, 1999; John C. Avis, The Genetic Gods: Evolution and Belief in Human Affairs, 1998:
Altruism is one of four major categories of innate human dispositions (the others being aggression, sex, and religion) discussed in E. O. Wilson’s book On Human Nature. Few biologists would doubt that many of humankind’s strongest behavioral inclinations, including self-preservation and other egocentric tendencies, are the evolutionary outcome of natural selection at the level of individual fitness. Nor would many doubt that dispositions for care of offspring, allegiance to family or tribe, or other forms of helping behavior directed toward relatives are behavioral proclivities that evolved under natural selection and kin selection. But what about heroic acts on behalf of strangers, or the apparent readiness of soldiers and martyrs to lay down their lives for country and religion?
Sociobiological theory claims to explain even these most genuinely altruistic of behaviors.
Generosity without hope of personal reciprocation is the hallmark of “hard-core” altruism. According to sociobiological theory, such altruism evolved through kin selection in family or tribal units. Genes for hard-core altruism were favored because of fitness benefits conferred on close relatives through the altruists’ actions.
In contrast, “soft-core” altruism is ultimately selfish, with the “altruist” expecting reciprocation for his or her efforts. Soft-core altruism arose by selection at the level of individuals, and likely has contributed to the evolution of human proclivities for pretense, deceit about intentions, and other hypocritical maneuvers designed to hide the actor’s ulterior selfish motives.
Both of these categories of evolved altruism probably underlie many human emotions and behaviors that find exaggerated and elaborated expression in the modern world. Allegiances may be to football teams, nations, or global religions as well as to family units. The anticipated rewards may be the Super Bowl, medals of honor signaling societal respect, which because of our social nature we cherish highly, or a promised paradise in an afterlife.” s.153-154 .
Geoffrey Miller, The Mating Mind, How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature, 2001:
“Evolutionary fitness is linked to physical and mental fitness by something that biologists call "condition." In fact, an animal's "condition" is basically its physical fitness, health, and energy level. A high-fitness animal may be in poor condition due to a temporary injury or food shortage. A low-fitness animal might be in good condition due to a zoo taking very good care of it. In a science laboratory, we can disentangle condition from fitness. We can randomly assign different diets to different animals, or infect an experimental group with a communicable disease and protect a control group from that disease. But in nature, animals largely determine their own condition through their own efforts. The abilities to find food, resist disease, and avoid parasites are major determinants of condition, and major components of fitness. In nature, fitness generally correlates with condition. Good condition is thus a pretty good indicator of high fitness.” s. 110.
Margo DeMello, Encyclopedia Of Body Adornment, 2007.
“In modern society, we see that the desire to mold the body as a sign of social status is unchanged, with men and women using makeup, jewelry, hairstyles, cosmetic surgery, dieting, and fashion to transform their bodies in accordance with the current dictates of style. Fashionable bodies are young, thin, and beautiful, and when commonly practiced forms of adornment and modification (such as dieting, makeup, and hairstyling) cannot achieve these characteristics, more extreme modifications are available to those who can afford them. Full face, hair, and body makeovers are purchased by the wealthy and are also seen on television shows like “The Swan” and “Extreme Makeover,” and rely on modern surgical procedures such as bariatric surgery, cosmetic surgery, cosmetic dentistry, cosmetic dermatology, and hair implants and weaves.
Also in modern societies, we have seen the development of nonnormative body modifications such as tattooing, piercing, stretching, branding, scarification, and genital modifications, which allow individuals to step outside of the bounds of the normal social order, and mark membership in alternative subcultures [apparent nonconformists are often thus really only separatist “tribalists”], such as bikers, punks, convicts, gang members, or among those who practice alternative sexualities.
Also in the twentieth century we saw the development of a movement that not only uses nonnormative and often extreme body modifications but relies on them for aesthetic, spiritual, sexual, and personal growth [that any such “growth”, whatever that means, would occur does not obviously seem certain, be understood as to it’s reasons or moral motivation, nor, if regarded only it’s consequenses, compute with]. This movement, known as the modern primitives movement, borrows body modification techniques and religious and cultural beliefs from non-Western societies to resist and challenge modern social practices. Ironically, however, while the traditions borrowed in the modern primitives movement generally serve to mark traditional peoples as belonging to the social order, those practices, when used in the contemporary West, serve instead to separate the wearers from society, rather than integrate them.”, s, xix,
“In traditional societies such as foraging bands and pastoral or horticultural tribes, the marking of the body was a sign of inclusion in the community, but with the development of agriculture and the state, markings like tattooing, scarring, and branding became signs of exclusion and stigmatization, while in modern state-level societies, these same markings have become a means to individuate the self from the social group.
In traditional societies, for example, the use of body paint, tattooing, scarification piercing, head flattening, lip and ear stretching, and genital modifications like circumcision are quite common. These practices have multiple purposes, but the most central among them include decoration and the marking of social position.
Temporary adornments are most typically used to mark transitional statuses or for specific social events, whereas permanent modifications are more commonly used to mark permanent changes in status, permanent affiliations, and cultural concepts of beauty.” s. 19.
9 Människor idag föds med olika genetiska förutsättningar, en del t.o.m. dödligt sjuka med bara en kort tid att leva, eller med fruktansvärda deformeringar eller som dömda att med tiden under svåra plågor deformeras, handikappas, förlamas eller på annat sätt – tänk bara fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (kronisk och oundviklig förbening av kroppens muskelvävnad, brosk och annan mjukvävnad) – få sina liv knappt värda att leva, givet naturligtvis att någon liten glädje då och då ändå genom någon självbevarelsedrift, något hopp om bot, eller någon annan orsak, tillåts förvandla ett ”definitivt inte” till ett ”knappt”. Dessa olyckligt lottade, tillsammans med alla de som sjukdom, brott eller olycka gjort lika olyckliga, skriker efter inte bara kryckor och insulinsprutor, utan om biologisk förändring, efter bot och medel till bot som gör dem till den friskes like i funktion och förmåga, av egen kraft. Att göra alla friska är ett moraliskt måste, och därför ska nya metoder som nanoteknologi, genteknologi, och robotteknologi, alla varande vägar dit, finansieras och prioriteras. Men detta är bara steg 1. Steg 2 är att göra de friska lika kapabla, eller möjligen, lika kapabla att finna en tillfredställande, nyttig roll i samhället. Då det finns en risk att hög intelligens eller andra begåvnigsaktorer, eller preferenser, som det finns en begränsad marknad för, skulle tvinga personer att ta andra arbeten än dem de skulle ha föredragit eller är funtade att njuta av, eller rentav skulle sätta dem i roller som de genom sin oföränderliga specifika och medfödda konstitution direkt lider av, alla situationer förenade möjligen och i den sistnämnda med säkerhet med obehag, och följande missnöje, och så sannolikt social oro som resultat; då det finns en sådan risk, är det statens skyldighet att se till att antingen arbetsmarknaden matchar begåvnings- och preferensvariationen i populationen, elller vice versa. Även om det förra må framstå lämpligast, bör staten utan förbehåll se till att vetenskap och metoder för även det senare utforskas och når nödigt bemästrande för en eventuell situation där det senare är kanhända det enda möjliga, eller bedöms av rättviseskäl eller andra vadhelst de må gälla för överväganden, med förhoppningsvis rättvisan oskadd – liksom gäller även det motsatta valet, för trots allmän vanföreställning är genetisk samhällsreformering inte av någon generell anledning givet sämre än genom förvärvad mentalitets- och normändring -, lika intresserade och utrustade för alla uppgifter. Detta är kanske den bästa lösningen, inte minst ur säkerhetssynpunkt, då alla har lika möjlighet att genomskåda och resa sig mot en eventuell utveckling mot tyranni, och alla med maximal intelligens försedda skulle tänka och göra uppfinningar, förbättringar och upptäckter både inom sitt yrkesutövande och i vadhelst ämne eller vilkenhelst verksamhet de ägnar sin lediga tid åt att utforska, förstå och betänka. För att använda hjärnan även utom arbetstid ska vara både främjat genom utbildningsväsende och informationstillgång, och via den heder dess nytta ska inses föra med sig, som genom den berömmelse och de hedersbetygelser varje god insats ska lända, vilket bättre än det mesta sporrar tanken hos individen, och å den andra sidan fostrar hos allmänheten en vördnad för de tankfulla, vetgiriga och vetenskapligt ivriga, djärva och nyfikna.
Kort sagt; biologisk rättvisa råder när människors biologi gör dem lika kapabla till lika stor lycka. Hur det bör uppnås kan som synes diskuteras. Men att det första steget måste tas långt mer bestämt än idag är inte något att dryfta. Här ska också varenda stig och vartenda vetenskapligt tillgängligt skrymsle uppmärksammas. Läkemedelsföretagen ska tvingas lägga sina budgetar inte efter förmodad vinst, utan efter vilka tillstånd som genom sin mängd, intensitet, antal drabbade av, art hos och omfattning av orsakade obehag är mest akuta att avskaffa. (För information om fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, vars fortsatta existens är ett praktbevis på just läkemedelsindustriens vanart och vidare en skamfläck på hela världens intelligentsia, se Wikipedia eller http://www.ifopa.org/, hemsida för The International Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva Association.)
Att människor föds med olika häsotillstånd, organisk funktionalitet etc, är det ingen diskussion om. Men medfödda begåvningskillnader måste vissa/många envist förneka. Alla "vet" annorlunda, eller säger sig "veta" så i alla fall, men detta är fakta: Linda Gottfredson, ”The General Intelligence Factor”, Scientific American, s. 24-29:
”By now the vast majority of intelligence researchers take these findings for granted. Yet in the press and in public debate, the facts are typically dismissed, downplayed or ignored. This misrepresentation reflects a clash between a deeply felt ideal and a stubborn reality. The ideal, implicit in many popular critiques of intelligence research, is that all people are born equally able and that social inequality results only from the exercise of unjust privilege. The reality is that Mother Nature is no egalitarian. People are in fact unequal in intellectual potential—and they are born that way, just as they are born with different potentials for height, physical attractiveness, artistic flair, athletic prowess and other traits. Although subsequent experience shapes this potential, no amount of social engineering can make individuals with widely divergent mental aptitudes into intellectual equals.
Of course, there are many kinds of talent, many kinds of mental ability and many other aspects of personality and character that influence a person’s chances of happiness and success. The functional importance of general mental ability in everyday life, however, means that without onerous restrictions on individual liberty, differences in mental competence are likely to result in social inequality. This gulf between equal opportunity and equal outcomes is perhaps what pains Americans most about the subject of intelligence. The public intuitively knows what is at stake: when asked to rank personal qualities in order of desirability, people put intelligence second only to good health. But with a more realistic approach to the intellectual differences between people, society could better accommodate these differences and minimize the inequalities they create.;
Pinker, om könsskillnader:
“But the pink-and-blue theory is becoming less and less credible. Here are a dozen kinds of evidence that suggest that the difference between men and women is more than genitalia-deep. [These are all footnoted in org.]
Sex differences are not an arbitrary feature of Western culture, like the decision to drive on the left or on the right. In all human cultures, men and women are seen as having different natures. All cultures divide their labor by sex, with more responsibility for childrearing by women and more control of the public and political realms by men. (The division of labor emerged even in a culture where everyone had been committed to stamping it out, the Israeli kibbutz.) In all cultures men are more aggressive, more prone to stealing, more prone to lethal violence (including war), and more likely to woo, seduce, and trade favors for sex. And in all cultures one finds rape, as well as proscriptions against rape.
Many of the psychological differences between the sexes are exactly what an evolutionary biologist who knew only their physical differences would predict. Throughout the animal kingdom, when the female has to invest more calories and risk in each offspring (in the case of mammals, through pregnancy and nursing), she also invests more in nurturing the offspring after birth, since it is more costly for a female to replace a child than for a male to replace one. The difference in investment is accompanied by a greater competition among males over opportunities to mate, since mating with many partners is more likely to multiply the number of offspring of a male than the number of offspring of a female. When the average male is larger than the average female (as is true of men and women), it bespeaks an evolutionary history of greater violent competition by males over mating opportunities. Other physical traits of men, such as later puberty, greater adult strength, and shorter lives, also indicate a history of selection for high-stakes competition.
Many of the sex differences are found widely in other primates, indeed, throughout the mammalian class. The males tend to compete more aggressively and to be more polygamous; the females tend to invest more in parenting. In many mammals a greater territorial range is accompanied by an enhanced ability to navigate using the geometry of the spatial layout (as opposed to remembering individual landmarks). More often it is the male who has the greater range, and that is true of human hunter-gatherers. Men's advantage in using mental maps and performing 3-D mental rotation may not be a coincidence.
Geneticists have found that the diversity of the DNA in the mitochondria of different people (which men and women inherit from their mothers) is far greater than the diversity of the DNA in Y chromosomes (which men inherit from their fathers). This suggests that for tens of millennia men had greater variation in their reproductive success than women. Some men had many descendants and others had none (leaving us with a small number of distinct Y chromosomes), whereas a larger number of women had a more evenly distributed number of descendants (leaving us with a larger number of distinct mitochondrial genomes). These are precisely the conditions that cause sexual selection, in which males compete for opportunities to mate and females choose the best-quality males.
The human body contains a mechanism that causes the brains of boys and the brains of girls to diverge during development. The Y chromosome triggers the growth of testes in a male fetus, which secrete androgens, the characteristically male hormones (including testosterone). Androgens have lasting effects on the brain during fetal development, in the months after birth, and during puberty, and they have transient effects at other times. Estrogens, the characteristically female sex hormones, also affect the brain throughout life. Receptors for the sex hormones are found in the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, and the amygdala in the limbic system of the brain, as well as in the cerebral cortex.
The brains of men differ visibly from the brains of women in several ways. Men have larger brains with more neurons (even correcting for body size), though women have a higher percentage of gray matter. (Since men and women are equally intelligent overall, the significance of these differences is unknown.) The interstitial nuclei in the anterior hypothalamus, and a nucleus of the stria terminalis, also in the hypothalamus, are larger in men; they have been implicated in sexual behavior and aggression. Portions of the cerebral commissures, which link the left and right hemispheres, appear to be larger in women, and their brains may function in a less lopsided manner than men's. Learning and socialization can affect the microstructure and functioning of the human brain, of course, but probably not the size of its visible anatomical structures.
Variation in the level of testosterone among different men, and in the same man in different seasons or at different times of day, correlates with libido, self-confidence, and the drive for dominance.44 Violent criminals have higher levels than nonviolent criminals; trial lawyers have higher levels than those who push paper. The relations are complicated for a number of reasons. Over a broad range of values, the concentration of testosterone in the bloodstream doesn't matter. Some traits, such as spatial abilities, peak at moderate rather than high levels. The effects of testosterone depend on the number and distribution of receptors for the molecule, not just on its concentration. And one's psychological state can affect testosterone levels as well as the other way around. But there is a causal relation, albeit a complicated one. When women preparing for a sex-change operation are given androgens, they improve on tests of mental rotation and get worse on tests of verbal fluency. The journalist Andrew Sullivan, whose medical condition had lowered his testosterone levels, describes the effects of injecting it: “The rush of a T shot is not unlike the rush of going on a first date or speaking before an audience. I feel braced. After one injection, I almost got in a public brawl for the first time in my life. There is always a lust peak — every time it takes me unaware.” Though testosterone levels in men and women do not overlap, variations in level have similar kinds of effects in the two sexes. High-testosterone women smile less often and have more extramarital affairs, a stronger social presence, and even a stronger handshake.
Women's cognitive strengths and weaknesses vary with the phase of their menstrual cycle. When estrogen levels are high, women get even better at tasks on which they typically do better than men, such as verbal fluency. When the levels are low, women get better at tasks on which men typically do better, such as mental rotation. A variety of sexual motives, including their taste in men, vary with the menstrual cycle as well.
Androgens have permanent effects on the developing brain, not just transient effects on the adult brain. Girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia overproduce androstenedione, the androgen hormone made famous by the baseball slugger Mark McGwire. Though their hormone levels are brought to normal soon after birth, the girls grow into tomboys, with more rough-and-tumble play, a greater interest in trucks than dolls, better spatial abilities, and, when they get older, more sexual fantasies and attractions involving other girls. Those who are treated with hormones only later in childhood show male patterns of sexuality when they become young adults, including quick arousal by pornographic images, an autonomous sex drive centered on genital stimulation, and the equivalent of wet dreams.
The ultimate fantasy experiment to separate biology from socialization would be to take a baby boy, give him a sex-change operation, and have his parents raise him as a girl and other people treat him as one. If gender is socially constructed, the child should have the mind of a normal girl; if it depends on prenatal hormones, the child should feel like a boy trapped in a girl's body. Remarkably, the experiment has been done in real life — not out of scientific curiosity, of course, but as a result of disease and accidents. One study looked at twenty-five boys who were born without a penis (a birth defect known as cloacal exstrophy) and who were then castrated and raised as girls. All of them showed male patterns of rough-and-tumble play and had typically male attitudes and interests. More than half of them spontaneously declared they were boys, one when he was just five years old.”, s. 346-349.
Pinker igen, om främst begåvnings- och karaktärsskillnader, och varför ingen fascistoid politik blir moralisk även om stora skillnader finns:
“I find it truly surreal to read academics denying the existence of intelligence. Academics are obsessed with intelligence. They discuss it endlessly in considering student admissions, in hiring faculty and staff, and especially in their gossip about one another. Nor can citizens or policymakers ignore the concept, regardless of their politics. People who say that IQ is meaningless will quickly invoke it when the discussion turns to executing a murderer with an IQ of 64, removing lead paint that lowers a child's IQ by five points, or the presidential qualifications of George W. Bush. In any case, there is now ample evidence that intelligence is a stable property of an individual, that it can be linked to features of the brain (including overall size, amount of gray matter in the frontal lobes, speed of neural conduction, and metabolism of cerebral glucose), that it is partly heritable among individuals, and that it predicts some of the variation in life outcomes such as income and social status.
The existence of inborn talents, however, does not call for Social Darwinism. The anxiety that one must lead to the other is based on two fallacies. The first is an all-or-none mentality that often infects discussions of the social implications of genetics. The likelihood that inborn differences are one contributor to social status does not mean that it is the only contributor. The other ones include sheer luck, inherited wealth, race and class prejudice, unequal opportunity (such as in schooling and connections), and cultural capital: habits and values that promote economic success. Acknowledging that talent matters doesn't mean that prejudice and unequal opportunity do not matter.
[---]
Can one really reconcile biological differences with a concept of social justice? Absolutely. In his famous theory of justice, the philosopher John Rawls asks us to imagine a social contract drawn up by self-interested agents negotiating under a veil of ignorance, unaware of the talents or status they will inherit at birth — ghosts ignorant of the machines they will haunt. He argues that a just society is one that these disembodied souls would agree to be born into, knowing that they might be dealt a lousy social or genetic hand. If you agree that this is a reasonable conception of justice, and that the agents would insist on a broad social safety net and redistributive taxation (short of eliminating incentives that make everyone better off), then you can justify compensatory social policies even if you think differences in social status are 100 percent genetic. The policies would be, quite literally, a matter of justice, not a consequence of the indistinguishability of individuals.
Indeed, the existence of innate differences in ability makes Rawls's conception of social justice especially acute and eternally relevant. If we were blank slates, and if a society ever did eliminate discrimination, the poorest could be said to deserve their station because they must have chosen to do less with their standard-issue talents. But if people differ in talents, people might find themselves in poverty in a nonprejudiced society even if they applied themselves to the fullest. That is an injustice that, a Rawlsian would argue, ought to be rectified, and it would be overlooked if We didn't recognize that people differ in their abilities.
Some people have suggested to me that these grandiloquent arguments are just too fancy for the dangerous world we live in. Granted, there is evidence that people are different, but since data in the social sciences are never perfect, and since a conclusion of inequality might be used to the worst ends by bigots or Social Darwinists, shouldn't we err on the side of caution and stick with the null hypothesis that people are identical? Some believe that even if we were certain that people differ genetically, we might still want to promulgate the fiction that they are the same, because it is less open to abuse.
This argument is based on the fallacy that the Blank Slate has nothing but good moral implications and a theory of human nature nothing but bad ones. In the case of human differences, as in the case of human universals, the dangers go both ways. If people in different stations are mistakenly thought to differ in their inherent ability, we might overlook discrimination and unequal opportunity. In Darwin's words, “If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” But if people in different stations are mistakenly thought to be the same, then we might envy them the rewards they've earned fair and square and might implement coercive policies to hammer down the nails that stick up. The economist Friedrich Hayek wrote, “It is just not true that humans are born equal;... if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position; ... [thus] the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are, therefore, not only different but in conflict with each other.” The philosophers Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, and Robert Nozick [åtminstone ett rätt Nozick] have made similar points.
Unequal treatment in the name of equality can take many forms. Some forms have both defenders and detractors, such as soak-the-rich taxation, heavy estate taxes, streaming by age rather than ability in schools, quotas and preferences that favor certain races or regions, and prohibitions against private medical care or other voluntary transactions. But some can be downright dangerous. If people are assumed to start out identical but some end up wealthier than others, observers may conclude that the wealthier ones must be more rapacious. And as the diagnosis slides from talent to sin, the remedy can shift from redistribution to vengeance. Many atrocities of the twentieth century were committed in the name of egalitarianism, targeting people whose success was taken as evidence of their criminality. The kulaks (“bourgeois peasants”) were exterminated by Lenin and Stalin in the Soviet Union; teachers, former landlords, and “rich peasants” were humiliated, tortured, and murdered during China's Cultural Revolution; city dwellers and literate professionals were worked to death or executed during the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.24 Educated and entrepreneurial minorities who have prospered in their adopted regions, such as the Indians in East Africa and Oceania, the Ibos in Nigeria, the Armenians in Turkey, the Chinese in Indonesia and Malaysia, and the Jews almost everywhere, have been expelled from their homes or killed in pogroms because their visibly successful members were seen as parasites and exploiters.
A nonblank slate means that a tradeoff between freedom and material equality is inherent to all political systems. The major political philosophies can be defined by how they deal with the tradeoff. The Social Darwinist right places no value on equality; the totalitarian left places no value on freedom. The Rawlsian left sacrifices some freedom for equality; the libertarian right sacrifices some equality for freedom. While reasonable people may disagree about the best tradeoff, it is unreasonable to pretend there is no tradeoff. And that in turn means that any discovery of innate differences among individuals is not forbidden knowledge to be suppressed but information that might help us decide on these tradeoffs in an intelligent and humane manner.”, s. 149-153.
10 Vi kommer inom de närmaste femtio åren att erfara miljökatastrofer av gigantiska mått. Temperaturökning kommer göra ekvatoriala områden i stora delar omöjliga att överleva I eller helt odrägliga under stora delar av året. Stora arealer förvandlas till steril öken eller halvöken. Vattendrag och källor fördunstar. Miljontals människor drivs på flykt undan värmen, törsten och svälten.
Samtidigt smälter glaciärer, Grönlands- och polaris. Särskilt delar av Antarktis och det oförutsägbara Grönland smälter bit för bit, med fara för katastrofala, plötsliga superavsmältningar, som t.ex. skulle bli fallet om en prekär del av Antarktis plötsligt bröts loss och smälte bort, eller om Grönlandsisens fjordbundna glaciärer skulle nå en kritisk mängd ansamlat och “smörjemedelsverkande” smältvatten längs sina bottnar. Då skulle på kort tid enorma glaciärer med väsentligt högre fart glida ut i havet, brytas loss och smälta. Allt detta smältande skulle också ge mer drivmedel åt yttterligare avsmältning, och på kort tid kunde Grönlands isar reduceras till en bråkdel. En restriktiv bedömning förutspår en havsnivåhöjning av minst 1 meter de närmaste 15 åren. Andra menar att 6 meter är mer troligt. En del spekulerar om ännu katastrofalare scenarion.
En tredje katastrof som vi kan vara desto mer säkra på vad gäller tid och omfattning är den förestående slutförbrukningen av världens olja. Denna kommer att komma gradvis, märkt utåt på ett ständigt stigande oljepris, allteftersom den efterfrågade varan blir mer och mer begränsad i tillgång. Till slut nås punkten där det blir omöjligt dyrt för gemene man att ens genom ransonering förse sin bil med fossil bränsle. Alternativ, som elbilar, bränslecellsbilar och annat kommer komma, men efterfrågan kommer göra tillgången försumlig och massvis av applikationer andra än bilar kommer vara svåra att anpassa till alternative bränslen. De alternativt drivna fordonen kommer också vara relativt opraktiska i jämförelse och det kommer att dröja innan samhället kunnat ställa om från olje-epoken. 15-20 år från nu är denna kris ett faktum, och jordens ekonomi kommer inte bara gå in i djup depression utan kommer totalt kollapsa. Krig om den kvarvarande oljan är redan ett faktum och de kommer bli fler med åren.
Med miljontals människor drivna på flykt av värme och översvämningar, samt av det alltmer våldsamma väder som kommer drabba Europa, i ett global ekonomiskt katastroftillstånd, där hela samhällsordningar kommer att störtas i kaos och anarki, kommer gemene man att med all rätt uppvälla inuti sin person ett sådant hat och en sådan bitterhet mot de plutokrater, deras ruttna partier och deras i bakgrunden mäktiga stöttare och enormt inflytelserika finansiella rovintressen, som alla med sin politik av ”ständig tillväxt”, d.v.s. ständigt ökad förorening och energiförbrukning, med sin köpta massmedia som sått tvivel och förhindrat kännedom om den verkliga situationens art, som med sin 30-åriga förnekan och nonchalering, mot bättre vetande, av alla farorna, och under ett plutokratiskt tyranni låst ute all verklig opposition och möjlighet till nödig kursändring, medvetet och genom en lång rad svek, undanhållande av fakta, intellektuella bedrägerier och avsiktlig avföran av fokus från världsproblemen, fört oss slutligen till en sådan ruin, att ingen man av folket kommer att kunna förlåta eller inte frestas att tänka på rättvisa och rannsakan. Då slutligen kommer eftertanken att eggas, och politiken bli så central för folket som den alltid borde ha varit, och det parti som bäst framställer rättvisan och fakta, kommer för en gång skull att vara dit blickarna vänds, istället för dit mest putsade fasad och fagra tal lockat den distraherade homo televidens, inte särskilt bekymrad ändå om vem som borde vinna – ”de är ju likadana allihop och hursomhelst så kommer det gå rätt bra vilka som än vinner. Nu måste jag slå över, filmen börjar ju för sjutton strax”.
Nu är det något nytt man letar efter, man tar sig tid att läsa kampanjmaterial, tidningskommentarer och lyssna till talares långa utläggningar; och vi, vi seminister, måste finnas där, i hundratusental, för att ge dem vår kunskap och åsikt och få dem att märka, uppmärksamma, förstå, gilla, och således vilja vår politik. Vi kommer göra de ändringar som krävs.
För faktaunderlag (kommer att bearbetas, citeras och förklaras): George Monbiot, “A Sudden Change of State”, the Guardian 3rd July 2007; James Hansen et al, “Climate Change and Trace Gases”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society – A, Vol 365, 1925-1954, 2007; James Hansen, “Scientific reticence and sea level rise”, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies & Environmental Research Letters, March 23, 2007; David Talbot, “Rapidly accelerating glaciers may increase how fast sea level rises”, UC Santa Cruz Online, Emily Saarminan, November 14, 2005; “Measuring the Polar Meltdown”, Technology Review, Nov/Dec, 110-116, 2007; Andrew Shepherd & Duncan Wingham, “Recent Sea-Level Contributions of the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets”, Science, No 315, 1529-1532, 2007; Kurt M. Campbell, Jay Gulledge, J.R. McNeill, John Podesta, Peter Ogden, Leon Fuerth, R. James Woolsey, Alexander T.J. Lennon, Julianne Smith, Richard Weitz, Derek Mix, “The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change”, publicerad av Center for a New American Security, 2007; G. McGranahan, D. Balk, och B. Anderson, “The rising tide: assessing the risks of climate change and human settlements in low elevation coastal zones,” Environment & Urbanization, No 19, 17-37, 2007; C. Small, V. Gornitz, och J. E. Cohen, “Coastal Hazards and the Global Distribution of Human Population,” Environmental Geosciences , No 7, 3-12, 2000; R.J. Nicholls, “Coastal flooding and wetland loss in the 21st century: changes under the SRES climate and socio-economic scenarios,” Global Environmental Change, No 14, 69-86, 2004; Hermann E. Ott, “Climate Change: An Important Foreign Policy Issue,” International Affairs, No 77:2, 295, 2001;
David Cameron, “A Warmer World is Ripe for Conflict and Danger, Financial Times, 24:e januari, 2007:
"Picture Japan, suffering from flooding along its coastal cities and contamination of its fresh water supply, eyeing Russia's Sakhalin Island oil and gas reserves as an energy source . . . Envision Pakistan, India and China - all armed with nuclear weapons - skirmishing at their borders over refugees, access to shared river and arable land."
This might look like the minutes from a meeting of Hollywood executives. In fact, it is from a Pentagon memo on the possible consequences of global warming. Climate change is not just an environmental question, it could have a massive impact on international security.
People in the developing world will likely suffer most, as climate change will make the resources they depend on more scarce: fresh water, cropland, forests and fisheries. This will have grave humanitarian consequences. Oxfam predicts 30m more people could be at risk of famine as a result of global warming. With more famine we should expect more disease.
The demand for essential resources could exacerbate tensions within countries. We are already seeing this: a contributing factor to the conflict in Darfur has been a change in rainfall that pitted nomadic herders against settled farmers. Such conflicts over resources within countries could easily turn into conflicts between countries - either directly through clashes between governments over a resource such as a shared river or indirectly through the pressure of refugees crossing borders.
Make no mistake: climate change is not just changing the planet, it is changing human lives. Creeping environmental deterioration already displaces 10m people a year. This could rise to 50m by 2010. Movements like this will have a huge impact on worldwide immigration patterns.”
11 Kvinnor vill, särskilt om de gör karriär, ha sex mer sällan och under mer specifika förhållanden än män. Detta skapar frustration och djupt lidande hos en stor grupp män. Därför bör kvinnors sexualitet förstärkas, göras mindre förenad med kärleksband, och deras orgasm lätt att få och altid av god kvalité. Om kvinnors relativt samhällsnyttan defekta sexualdrift och-funktion, se: Beck, J. Gayle, ”Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder: An Overview”, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology , Vol. 63, No. 6, 919-927, 1995:
“For example, everyday life stressors (denned as hassles) have been shown to correlate with reduced sexual desire in both men and women (MorokorT & Gillilland, 1993). Similarly, Avery-Clark (1986) contrasted working and nonworking women who presented to a sex therapy clinic for treatment of sexual problems.
Career women (defined as women who were pursuing careers of an ongoing, developmental nature) were significantly more likely to receive a diagnosis of HSDD [low sexual desire], relative to women in less demanding jobs or women who were not employed outside of the home. These data can enlighten available theories through illuminating the important impact that environmental and role stressors play on sexual functioning, particularly sexual desire.” s. 922, “Recently, a large-scale pharmaceutical study for the full spectrum of sexual dysfunctions indicated that 588 (65%) of 906 clients received a primary diagnosis of HSDD. Within the HSDD sample, 81% (475) were female (Segraves & Segraves, 1991). In this report, men diagnosed with HSDD were significantly older than female clients with HSDD, with no differences in the duration of the disorder. Approximately 40% of clients with a primary HSDD diagnosis received secondary diagnoses of arousal or orgasm disorders in this study.”, s. 920, “Several reports have examined gender differences in HSDD, an issue that is relevant in light of the fact that women are more likely than men to receive this diagnosis. An interesting finding in this regard is the observation that both men and women with HSDD report significantly lower frequencies of sexual fantasy, relative to sexually functional individuals (Nutter & Condron, 1983, 1985).
Oddly, the male sample in this study reported a significantly higher frequency of masturbation relative to male clients in the control group, whereas no differences were noted in this regard in the female samples.”, s. 920.
Stephenie Davies, Jennifer Katz, och Joan L. Jackson, ”Sexual Desire Discrepancies: Effects on Sexual and Relationship Satisfaction in Hetero sexual Dating Couples”, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 28, No. 6, 553-567, 1999:
"Individual and erotic environmental factors are thought to precipitate men’s desire, whereas interpersonal and romantic environmental factors are thought to precipitate women’s desire (Regan and Berscheid, 1995). The same authors also found gender differences in goals associated with sexual desire. Mentended to view sexual activity as the goal of sexual desire, whereas women tended to believe that love and emotional intimacy are the goals of sexual desire (Regan and Berscheid, 1996). It seems that sexual desire represents a more interpersonal and contextual experience for women relative men” s. 555 – d.v.s. män vill ha sex när de vill ha sex, kvinnor vill ha intimitet och känslosamma kärleksbevis,
“Consistent with Donahey and Carroll’s (1993) Ž finding that women with HSDD are less sexually satisfied than men with HSDD, in our sample, women who reported lower desire than their partners experienced significantly lower levels of sexual satisfaction then the other women. The men who reported lower sexual desire levels than their partners did not indicate experiencing significantly lower levels of sexual satisfaction than the other men. Therefore, it appears that our results are similar to those found in studies with clinical samples looking at individuals with a diagnosis of HSDD”, s. 555.
Regan, P. C. & Berscheid, E., ”Gender differences in beliefs about the causes of male and female sexual desire”, Relationships, No 2, 345-358, 1995; Regan, P. C., & Berscheid, E. ”Gender differences in characteristics desired in a potential sexual and marriage partner.”, Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality, No 9, 25-37, 1999; Regan, P. C., Levin, L., Sprecher, S., Christopher, F. S., & Cate, R., ”Partner preferences: What characteristics do men and women desire in their short-term sexual and long-term romantic partners?”, Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality, No 12, 1-21, 2000.
12 Minskning av mäns testosteronhalt - vilket är det närmast mest lovande redan idag tekniskt möjliga fysiska ingreppet - över en viss nivå ska justeras medicinskt. Detta kommer göra män långt mindre aggressiva, farosökande, modiga, dominanta, och således mindre kriminella och våldsamma, även om de inte kommer bli lika lite aggressiva som kvinnor, men inte heller med någon - förutom i sin mindre våldsamhet – annan märkbar feminisering. Se: Lea H. Studer, A. Scott Aylwin, & John R. Reddon, ”Testosterone, Sexual Offense Recidivism, and Treatment Effect Among Adult Male Sex Offenders”, Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2005:
"The findings of this study are important for three different reasons. Firstly, the correlation between serum testosterone values and offense severity was statistically significant (i.e., non-null). This lends further support to the hypothesis that testosterone is related to severity of expressed aggression associated with sexual offending. This clinically derived measure specifically assessed aggression during sexual offending as opposed to either dimension in isolation. That is to say, testosterone levels seem to be related not only to sex drive and aggression as separate entities, but also to sexual aggression.
Secondly, serum testosterone level was a more robust predictor of sexual offense recidivism than the authors had anticipated. The correlation was clear andstatistically significant for the noncompleters of treatment as well as the pooled sample. To date this measure has not been used in risk prediction algorithms, but may be worth considering in that light. According to recent research undertaken to develop actuarial measures of likelihood to recidivate, static/historic variables account for the greatest degree of variance in predicting reoffense”, s. 177..
Angela S. Book, Katherine B. Starzyk, Vernon L. Quinsey, ”The relationship between testosterone and aggression: a meta-analysis”, Aggression and Violent Behavior, No 6, 579–599, 2001:
”Previous research suggests that testosterone levels fluctuate daily and seasonally (Bernstein, Gordon, & Rose, 1983), and that individual testosterone levels are higher and most variable in the morning and lower and more stable in the afternoon. Although testosterone levels decline throughout the day, the largest decline occurs = vaknat på fel sida) between 7:00 and 10:00 a.m. (! - för visst är män trevligast tidigt på kvällen och sent på eftrmiddagen, inte sant? Det är I alla fall inte sed bland män att umgås – fastän det kan hända och händer dagligen på arbetsplatser runtom I landet, bara absolut inte utan samtidig sysselsättning med något arbete, gemensamt göromål, projekt, eller annat företag, likt tysta I sällskap en morgon vid någon norrländsk å i färd med sin delade fiskehobby t.ex. - och avkopplat och otvunget samlas och trivas och prata kamratskap och ev. “gamla tider”, på något så opassande som arla morgonen, eller ens tidiga förmiddagen, det har åtminstone Demokrates aldrig gjort… annat än på bakfyllan, eller intoxikerad av cannabis eller psykostimulantia.) (Dabbs, 1990).” s. 582, och så, när nästa citat väl kommer - se där då, inte blunda! – kan det bli en nagelbitare för den socialdeterministiska skara ögontjänare som genom sin gedigna, politiskt korrekta okunskap totalt misslyckats med sina feministiska aspirationer. Dogmatiskt fast i det förflutna, härskar de oinskränkt och tyranniserar barn där de kommer åt. Det är barnmiljöer som bland ensamma mammor, tredje vågens velourpappor, dagispersonal, dagmammor, skolpersonal, fritidspersonal och idrottsföreträdare. I dessa miljöer ska man vara medströms med den populära, socialdeterministiska pseudovetenskapen - annars!
All den litteratur som med grund i hormonfokuserade könsdifferentiella studier, tvillingstudier, i den rikliga mängd goda evolutionspsykologiska skäl att förvänta sig många genetiskt baserade, fysiologiska och psykiska, och ofta starkt genetiskt uttryckta, könskillnader, att förvänta sig alltså av tydligt evolutionsfördelaktiga drag och med tanke på människans stamvisa sociala natur, överlevnadsmässigt och reproduktivt nyttiga egenskaper som skiljer sig mellan könen. I beaktande av hennes av paleologer omsorgsfullt rekonstruerade förhistoriska miljö, och på knappa fynd skickligt och i stora drag klarlagda utvecklingsbana från apa till modern homo sapiens, den bevismässigt väl understödda bilden av hennes sociala, geografiska, klimatiska, och ekologiska situation under skiftande epoker, och den åtminstone i Europa ganska stabila period som rådde under större delen av paleolitikum, de i dessa situationer troliga sexuella beteendena. och deras följder i form av sociala spänningar som bör haft evolutionär inverkan på eller utveckling av olika instinkter, som i sin tur gynnade vissa utseenden, fysisk styrka, intelligens m.m..
Det fanns redan för hundratusen år sedan, minst, en tydligt utvecklad, av allt att döma könsmässigt baserad allmänn arbetsdelning, i varje fall vad gäller födoanskaffning, stammens försvar mot andra stammar, och ansvar för späd- och småbarnsskötsel. Denna uppdelning av upgifter efter kön gav betydande skillnader i evolutionära tryckmekanismers verkan på olika talanger, förmågor, instinkter, fysisk styrka, och inte minst aggressiviteten och förmågan till känslokyla inför motståndare, under utövande av vad som annars vore abnormalt aggressivt och asocialt beteende, men ett beteende nödvändigt att vid behov kunna tåla i kontakt med rivaler och ovälkomna främlingar av samma art. Detta komplex av nedärvda, och, genom bättre anpassning till omständigheterna, för sin reproduktiva nytta för individen, stärkta, eller försvagade drag, ofta olika alltså mellan könen, eller rentav könsunika.
Dessa är inte sällan svåra eller omöjliga att uppfostra bort, helt eller delvis, tyvärr, men deras existens och natur är på fast mark, inte bara härledda ur vad vi vet om flora och fauna, terräng, födotillgång, spår av kosthållningens natur på t.ex. tänder, på jaktredskap och samlarhjälpmedel, på fynd av välbevarade, sena mossmummifierade stenåldersliks maginnehåll och dylikt. Inte ens allt detta tillsammans med mycket annat talande i form av starrka indicier eller bevis, som det ganska samtidiga utdöendet bland och avbildningen av - i fantastiska grottmålningar i ex. nuv. Frankrike - det tyngsta storviltet, mammutar t.ex., beaktat storleken på våra könsorgan och våra seriella, semimonogama sexualrelationer, sett till vad vi idag finner attraktivt hos en prospektiv partner, vissa drags universellt önskade status, vilka dessa drag är och hur olika könens preferenser, och betänkt de olikheter i fundamentala sexuella beteendemönstren mellan kvinnor och män som överallt gör sig påminda, samt vad detta säger oss – de flesta skillnader sådana som evolutionspsykologien förutsäger deras förekomst, form, funktion, med ofta god precision.
Men mängden bevis är tillräcklig, även om vi är aldrig så kräsna och fulla av tvivel. Mycket ytterligare information har vi t.ex. från studier av moderna stammar, vilkas liv och leverne är i allt väsentligt oförändrat sedan stenålderns långa förhistoria. Överallt med uppvisande av vissa stereotypa könsskillnader, i barnens lekfulla beteenden såväl som i de vuxnas arbetsdelning, sinnelag, fysik, intressen, sociala och sexuella mönster, delegerandet av barnens fostran beroende på ålder och kön, deras olika uppfostran till sina vuxna roller som samlare och barnskötare, eller jägare och krigare, och genom uppmuntrande sitt köns naturligt starkare böjelser till vissa handlingar, bättre fysik för vissa sysslor, psykiska drag som större benägenhet till risktagande och aggressivitet, med våldsam och bland dessa stammar ofta dödlig behandling av fiender eller inkräktare, tillsammans med övriga tydligt olika könsrollsegenskaper, regelmässigt och konstant närvarande, med mest variation i andra beteenden, som typen av bytesdjur, vegetabilier och annan föda, i valet av vilka sexuellt attraktiva drag som premieras, i bostädernas art och kvalité, i föreställningar om det övernaturliga etc, men vad gäller det primära liteb skillnad, även om det gäller en global jämförelse, av ex. en stam i Amazonas, en i Afrika , en Australien och en till t.ex. på Papua Nya Guinea.
Sedan har vi våra nära primatsläktingars beteenden: schimpanser, dvärgschimpanser, orangutanger, gorillor m.fl., – hos dem finner vi stora likheter med våra egna beteenden, och då deras vetskap om hur vi är och beter oss begränsad så länge isolerade i sin naturliga miljö, samt deras förmåga att ackumulera kultur och konditionera sina unga till det relevanta aplivet, får man dra slutsatsen att de varken härmar oss eller beter sig mycket annorlunda från det som av instinkt faller dem in. Således ser vi mycket instinktivt beteende hos dem som motsvarar eller liknar delar av vårt eget beteende, och det är svårt att betvivla att också vi helst beter oss på aktuella vis mest för att det av instinkt helst faller oss in att så bete oss.
All denna vidsträckta variation av vetenskap och de olika disciplinernas typer av bevisning, tagna som helhet, är de beträffande köns- och individskillnaders mer eller mindre starka basis i instinkter, medfödda fysiska skillnader, medfödda psykiska talanger och drag, som kreativitet, socialitet, sexuell drift och förmåga, risktagande, aggressivitet och inte minst intelligens, enligt dagens konsensus en dödsdom för socialdeterminismen och tron på könens identiska och oändligt formbara psykiska och, i viss mån åtminstone, likaså - jämlikt - plastiska fysiska egenskaper, eller helt enkelt total avsaknad av de förra, alla födda som blanka blad, utan olika och potentiellt ojämlika psykiska drag, eller ojämn fördelning av dessa mellan könen. Men tråkigt nog är det så att skillnader finns. Kvinnors och mäns psyken är i regel mycket och inte sällan extremt olika, från födseln. Vetenskapen har belagt vad den på evolutionär grund ofta förutsagt. Bland de den sociala ingenjörskonsten alltid främst experimenterat med, barn och unga, är det ingen oenighet bland seriösa forskare längre att mycket av den universella och tidlösa samling elementära och generellt tydligt skönjbara olikheter i lek- och leksaksintressen, ”busighet”, stökighet, våldsamhet, koncentrationsgrad, mognadsutveckling, intresse för vuxenvärlden, frekvens och utveckling av självständigt god skötsel av påklädnad, tandborstning och övrig hygien och personlig omsorg, mod/dumdristighet, grad av allmänt lugn, socialitet, ordningssinne, och skötsamhet och hörsamhet gentemot vuxna och deras krav, är stimulerade av medfödda preferensskillnader och könsdisparat fördelning av, och av graden hos, olika förmågor. De ännu skapligt moderiktiga socialdeterminister som genom att ersätta vetenskapen som motivation till sitt handlande och sina trosföreställningar, med önsketänkandets fördomar, tror att barnens uteckling av könsskillnader är blott uppväxtmiljöns fel och säkert lätt att rätta till med t.ex. rosa leksaksbilar och tuffa ”muterade, cyborga och tungt beväpnade Barbie-dockor” eller något annat dumt påfund, borde sluta drömma och vakna upp. Riktig harmonisering av könen och I första steget elimineringen av männens överaggressivitet kräver biologisk - genetisk eller medicinsk - intervention:
“At the prenatal stage, testosterone has an organizational influence, differentiating male from female neural architectures. Prenatal testosterone levels also affect later in life. In humans, for example, fetal hormones increase assertive and aggressive behavior (Turner, 1994) as well as rough and tumble play and dominant behavior (Archer, 1991).”, s. 582,
“Sex is another possible moderator in the relationship between testosterone and aggression because women have relatively lower levels of testosterone and are much less physically aggressive than are men (Archer, 1991). In support of this differentiation, Mazur and Booth (1998) found that while men showed a rise in testosterone levels prior to a contest, there was no corresponding rise for women. They concluded that the effect of competition (often aggressive) for increasing levels appears to be specific to men. There is evidence to the contrary, however. Kemper (1990), for example, provides evidence to suggest that the relationship between testosterone and aggression is similar in strength and direction across the sexes”, s. 583 – desto bättre för teorien! Inte bara gör testosteron män stridiga, utan även kvinnor, som givetvis även de kan bli våldsamma, fastän som vi vet mycket väl och kan skatta oss lyckliga för, i långt mindre samhällsproblematisk skala.
Anu S. Aromäki, Ralf E. Lindman, & C.J. Peter Eriksson, ”Testosterone, Aggressiveness, and Antisocial Personality”, Aggressive Behavior, Vol. 25, 113–123, 1999:
”Single measures of morning and evening testosterone levels with hostility were all positive as predicted, although with significance levels around a = 0.10. These results imply that the observed relationship between testosterone concentration and hostility was relatively stable.
Regression analysis was also applied to investigate the relationship between antisocial personality and testosterone concentration. In the violent men, the ASP index was significantly related to the single measures of total testosterone in the morning (r = .50, P < .05) and in the evening (r = .47, P < .05), s. 119, “In the Dabbs and Morris [1990] study, males with high levels of testosterone reported more sex partners than did those whose testosterone levels fell in the normal range. No reliable information on the number of sexual partners was available in the present study, but the fact that significant correlations were found between free and total testosterone levels and self-reported interest in sex is clearly consistent with the Dabbs and Morris [1990] data.” s. 121 – Ja, många kvinnor verkar gillla slagskämpar, och i vilket fall kan de stora och starka misstänkas skrämma bort många konkurrenter,;
“Previous studies have explored the relationship between violent behaviors and basal testosterone either by a correlative approach or by comparisons of subject groups known to be aggressively or nonaggressively predisposed. Our present finding that testosterone levels were related to hostility in the violent but not in the nonviolent men implies that a high level of testosterone can be associated with violent behavior. The relationship may be obscured in less violent individuals through the restricted range of variation and may not be equally strong at different times of the circadian cycle. In previous studies in which high testosterone levels have correlated with aggression, testosterone concentration has generally been assessed in the morning, when the hormone levels are high.”, s. 120.
James M. Dabbs Jr, Timothy S. Carr, Robert L. Fradyj and Jasmin K. Riad, “Testosterone, Crime and Misbehavior among 692 Male Prison Inmates”, Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 18, No 5, 627-633, 1995:
“The present study supports earlier findings relating testosterone to criminal violence, and it provides details not available from earlier studies. Similar testosterone effects were found in two different sub-sets of data, even though there were significant differences between Ss in the two sets. Pooling the sub-sets to produce a large overall sample allowed us to draw conclusions about different kinds of crime. We found testosterone related to crimes of sex and violence. We clarified Rada, Laws, Kellner. Stivastava and Peake’s (1983) mixed evidence linking testosterone to rape and child molestation. And we related testosterone to prison behavior as well as to type of prior criminal behavior outside of prison.
The findings provide information about criminal behavior among low as well as high testosterone individuals. While certain crimes and misbehaviors are characteristic of high testosterone, others are characteristic of low testosterone. The rule violations shown at the top and bottom of Fig. 1 may be emblematic of high and low testosterone individuals. High testosterone individuals are dominant and confrontational, and they showed up where they did not belong (often to engage in illicit activity according to prison staff). Those low in testosterone hold back, and they are notable more by their absence than their presence. The relationship of testosterone to specific rule violations should not obscure the fact that higher testosterone inmates overall had more rule violations. The variety of rule violations suggests the behavior of high testosterone individuals reflects intractability, unmanageability, and lack of docility as well as aggression and violence.” s. 631.
Matt Ridley, The Red Queen, 2003:
” I suggest it is no accident that women have reached the top rung (as the prime minister in many countries) in numbers disproportionate to their strength on the lower rungs. I suggest that it is no accident that queens of Britain have a far more distinguished and consistent history than the kings. The evidence suggests that women are on average slightly better than men at running countries. The evidence supports the feminist assertion that men can only envy the female touches they bring to such jobs—intuition, character judgment, lack of self-worship. Since the bane of all organizations, whether they are companies, charities, or governments, is that they reward cunning ambition rather than ability (the people who are good at getting to the top are not necessarily the people who are best at doing the job) and since men are more endowed with such ambition than women, it is absolutely right that promo-tion should be biased in favor of women—not to redress prejudice but to redress human nature.
And also, of course, to represent the woman's point of view. Feminists believe that women need to be proportionally represented in Parliament and Congress because women have a different agenda. They are right if women are by nature different. If they were the same as men, there would be no reason for men not to represent women's interests as competently as they represent men's.To believe in sexual equality is just. To believe in sexual identity is a most peculiar and unfeminist thing to do.
Feminists who recognize this contradiction are pilloried for their pains. Camille Paglia, literary critic and gadfly, is one of the few who sees that feminism is trying an impossible trick: to change the nature of men while insisting that the nature of women is unchangeable. She argues that men are not closet women and women are not closet men: "Wake up," she cries. "Men and women are different."”, s. 258, “With that out of the way, let us examine the evidence. There are three reasons to expect evolution to have produced different mentalities in men and women. The first is that men and women are mammals, and all mammals show sexual differences in behavior. As Charles Darwin put it,"No one disputes that the bull differs indisposition from the cow, the wild boar from the sow, the stallion from the mare."'The second is that men and women are apes, and in all apes there are great rewards for males that show aggression toward other males, for males that seek mating opportunities, and for females that pay close attention to their babies. The third is that men and women are human beings, and human beings are mammals with one highly unusual characteristic: a sexual division of labor. Whereas a male and a female chimp seek the same sources of food, a male and a female human being, in virty every preagricultural society, set about gathering food in different ways: Men look for sources that are mobile, distant, and unpredictable (usually meat), while women, burdened with children, look for sources that are static, close, and predictable (usually plants). In other words, far from being an ape with fewer than usual sex differences, the human being may prove to be an ape with more than usual sex differences. Indeed, mankind may be the mammal with the greatest division of sexual labor and the greatest of mental differences between the sexes: Yet, though mankind may have added division of labor to the list of causes of sexual dimorphism, he has subtracted the effect of male parental care.
Of the many mental features that are claimed to be different between the sexes, four stand out as repeatable, real, and persistent in all psychological tests. First, girls are better at verbal tasks: Second, boys are better at mathematical tasks. Third, boys are more aggressive. Fourth, boys are better at some visuo-spatial tasks and girls at others. Put crudely, men are better at reading a map and women are better judges of character and mood—on average. (And, interestingly, gay men are more like women than heterosexual men in some of these respects.)”, s. 244-245;
Simon Baron-Cohen, abstract: “The Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ): evidence from Asperger Syndrome/high-functioning autism, males and females, scientists and mathematicians; Currently there are no brief, self-administered instruments for measuring the degree to which an adult with normal intelligence has the traits associated with the autistic spectrum. In this paper, we report on a new instrument to assess this: the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ). Individuals score in the range 0-50. Four groups of subjects were assessed: Group 1: n = 58 adults with Asperger Syndrome (AS) or high-functioning autism (HFA); Group 2: n = 174 randomly selected controls. Group 3: n = 840 students in Cambridge University; and Group 4: n = 16 winners of the UK Mathematics Olympiad. The adults with AS/HFA had a mean AQ score of 35.8 (sd = 6.5), significantly higher than Group 2 controls (x = 16.4, sd = 6.3). 80% of the adults with AS/HFA scored 32+, vs 2% of controls. Among the controls, males scored slightly but significantly higher than women. No females scored extremely highly (AQ score 34+) whereas 4% of males did so. Twice as many males (40%) as females (21%) scored at intermediate levels (AQ score 20+). Among the AS/HFA group, males and female scores did not differ significantly. The students in Cambridge University did not differ from the randomly selected control group, but scientists (including mathematicians) scored significantly higher than both humanities and social sciences students, confirming an earlier study that autistic conditions are associated with scientific skills. Within the sciences, mathematicians scored highest. This was replicated in Group 4, the Mathematics Olympiad winners scoring significantly higher than the male Cambridge humanities students. 6% of the student sample scored 32+ on the AQ. On interview, 11 out of 11 of these met 3 or more DSM-IV criteria for AS/HFA, and all were studying sciences/mathematics, and 7 of the 11 met threshold on these criteria. Test-retest and inter-rater reliability of the AQ was good. The AQ is thus a valuable instrument for rapidly quantifying where any given individual is situated on the continuum from autism to normality. Its potential for screening for autism spectrum conditions in adults of normal intelligence remains to be fully explored.”, s. 2,
“Within the control group, males score slightly but significantly higher than females, both overall, and at intermediate and high levels of autistic traits. This is consistent with the extreme male brain theory of autism (Asperger, 1944; Baron-Cohen & Hammer, 1997) and may have implications for the marked sex ratio in AS (Wing, 1981). Finally, scientists score higher than non-scientists, and within the sciences, mathematics, physical scientists, computer scientists, and engineers score higher than the more human or life centered sciences of medicine (including veterinary science) and biology. This latter finding replicates our earlier studies finding a link between autism spectrum conditions and occupations/skills in maths, physics, and engineering. Our recent single case studies of very high achieving mathematicians, physicists, and computer scientists with AS show that this condition need not be any obstacle to achieving the highest levels in these fields.
Converging evidence for a link between AS and talent in physics has recently been reported in an unselected sample of children with AS (Baron-Cohen et al., 1998).”, s. 16.
Katherine Weber and Rodney Custer, “Gender-based Preferences toward Technology Education Content and Instructional Methods”, Activities”, Journal of Technology Education, Spring 2005, Vol. 16, No 2:
“Females' preference for designing learning experiences and males' preference for utilizing learning experiences was consistent with gender stereotype research. Research indicates that females are more interested in design-oriented activities. This is particularly true when the design activities include a focus on problem solving or socially relevant issues. By contrast, particularly in traditional industrial arts classes, males have been attracted to a variety of building activities, which involved the use of machinery and tools. In many cases, traditional industrial arts activitieshave tended to de-emphasize the design aspects of making, with students often working from existing project plans. It is possible that the increased emphasis on design activities in contemporary technology education courses might provide some balance between designing and making/utilizing – which potentially makes technology education activities more appealing to both boys and girls.”, s. 15.
John Cartwright, Evolution and human behavior, 2000:
“Human violence resulting in death provides a set of data that allows predictions from evolutionary psychology to be tested. There is evidence, for example, that the risk of a child being killed by its mother declines as the age of the child and the mother increase. These facts are in keeping with the concept of reproductive value, but there may be other factors at work. Whereas kinship is usually predicted to reduce levels of violent behaviour, there were probably circumstances in the environment of evolutionary adaptation of early hominids in which, for example, infanticide served as an adaptive strategy to maximise the lifetime reproductive value of a parent. One of the most robust findings of the work of Daly and Wilson is that step-children experience a much higher risk of infanticide than genetic children. Psychological mechanisms that were once adaptive in the life history of early hominids may, when activated, now give rise to pioneering work on homicide, but the nature of the statistics used makes it difficult to control for all the social and cultural factors at work.
Much of the coercion and violence exercised by men over women can be understood in terms of paternity assurance. Marriage, from a Darwinian perspective, can be regarded as a reproductive contract between men and women to serve similar but, in important ways, different interests. Men have probably been selected to monitor and jealously guard the sexuality of their partners, whereas it is probable that women are more concerned about resources. Jealousy is an emotion experienced by both sexes but with more violent repercussions in cases where men suspect sexual infidelity on the part of their partner. Divorce statistics are consistent with the contract hypothesis and reflect age-related fertility differences between men and women.”, s. 286, “We can imagine a growing individual as being bombarded by bits of culture, or 'culturgens'. Genetically based rules of development will influence a child to accept some culturgens (an early word for memes) and reject others. Genes and culture have, therefore, shaped the final behaviour of the adult and, moreover, he or she then contributes in the re-creation of culture. Cultural and genetic change can take place together because culture sets the environment that may alter gene frequencies for genes that describe the epigenetic rule of development. In this manner, culture and genes roll on together.”, “As general rule, however, it is highly likely that a foraging way of life, especially where hunting produced an important part of the diet, never really sustained a high degree of polygyny.
The reasons for this are basically twofold and fairly simple. First, hunting large animals is risky and needs a combination of co-operation and luck. Given the prolonged period of gestation and nurturing for human infants, hunting is carried out by males, and the co-operation needed means that male rivalry must be kept within strict limits. Following a kill, the meat must be shared between all those who helped, and also with other unsuccessful groups along the lines of reciprocal altruism. If a high degree of polygyny prevailed in such groups, the sexual rivalry would militate against such altruism. In fact, the equitable sharing of hunted food is characteristic of hunter-gatherers and totally unlike that of other social hunting species where after a kill there is a free for all. Second, even if there were a surplus after sharing, meat is difficult to store. It is hard to see how, in a foraging culture, sufficient wealth or resources could ever be accumulated by one man to support a sizeable harem. Predictably, polygyny has been found to be pronounced or common in very few known hunter-gatherer societies. In most hunter-gatherer groups, men will have one or at most two wives.” s. 214-215.
Matt Ridley, Genome, 1999:
“If a correlation between IQ and certain genes shows through what Mark Philpott has called 'the fog of imperfect tests', that makes it all the more likely that there is a strongly heritable element to intelligence. Besides, modern tests have been vastly improved in their objectivity and their insensitivity to cultural background or specific knowledge.
There was a fashion in the 1960s for separating twins at birth, especially when putting them up for adoption. In many cases this was done with no particular thought, but in others it was deliberately done with concealed scientific motives: to test and (it was hoped) demonstrate the prevailing orthodoxy — that upbringing and environment shaped personality and genes did not.
The most famous case was that of two New York girls named Beth and Amy, separated at birth by an inquisitive Freudian psychologist. Amy was placed in the family of a poor, overweight, insecure and unloving mother; sure enough, Amy grew up neurotic and introverted, just as Freudian theory would predict. But so - down to the last details - did Beth, whose adoptive mother was rich, relaxed, loving and cheerful. The differences between Amy's and Beth's personalities were almost undetectable when they rediscovered each other twenty years later. Far from demonstrating the power of upbringing to shape our minds, the study proved the very opposite: the power of instinct.”, s. 82
Versio XXVII (c) Demokrates Sörensson 2008: får spridas fritt, så länge inget ändras eller tas ur sin kontext.
